You Were Always My Light, My Strength
by EleanorKate
Summary: A story of an old friendship and the return of an original character - Isobel - to Chummy's life in circumstances neither of which welcome. A story of abiding support and love and people you know you can go to when times are tough.
1. Chapter 1

"'ere Sarge!" came the voice from around the door, filtering through to his ears as Peter sat in his shared office studying next week's rotas that he had just about mastered with too much time and too little number of staff. "Your girlfriend's in the front askin' for you".

It took a few moments for the words to register in his brain that the young constable was talking to him particularly and Peter slowly raised his head from the paperwork in front of him. No, that headache was still ratta-tat-tatting away like a pickaxe in the side of his skull and his choice of occupation was doing him more harm than good. To top it all off, he really wasn't quite sure if he had heard right.

"Girlfriend?" he asked with an arched eyebrow, not particularly appreciating the reference and silently letting the much younger Constable know he was not at all impressed. Having a beat girlfriend might have been a running joke on this, if not all of the shifts, but some days it wore thin; particularly those when you were horribly missing your wife and nursing a crashing headache at the same time.

"Sorry Sir", the Constable replied admonished and embarrassed with the inappropriate familiarity even though he had known Peter for years. The officer stood under the lintel of the door, straight backed and arms rooted to his side suddenly remembering rank and how he really shouldn't talk to a more senior officer quite like that. "Sorry Sir" he repeated, raising his chin slightly to stand to attention. "There's a young lady asking to see you personally. She says her name is Mrs. Harbottle, she asked for you by your first name and said I had to find you as quickly as I could".

"Harbottle?" Peter asked as he stood up and straightened his tunic blinking quickly as the pain in his head, suddenly provoked by the harsh overhead light, refused to dull. Underneath it all though that name rang a bell.

"Yes Sir" the other replied, standing aside to let his Sergeant through as he walked past him into the corridor. "Don't know what she's been up to but she's a bit well dressed an' all her face painted to be around 'ere an' she looks awful nervous Sir; twitchy I'd say even. And she's got a suitcase with her Sir".

Peter stopped just before the roughly painted double doors that led into the station reception; the other officer only just avoiding crashing into his back as the light bulb in his aching head exploded into life. _That's where he remembered the name from! Of course!_ "Thank you Constable. I'll deal with her" Peter replied quickly, dismissing the other officer with a brief nod as he pushed the doors open and they swung closed behind him.

She stood with her back to him, studying the not very level notice board that hung on the wall; filled with news of demolitions, road closures and the occasional leaflet that Nonnatus asked them to pin up. Peter cleared his throat to catch her attention and she spun around, blonde hair resting quickly at her shoulders.

"Oh!" the woman began, a wave of relief washing across her face at the sight of him. "One is so glad you are here!" With that she shot across the floor and threw her arms around his neck, enveloping him into a more than enthusiastic hug. "I was hoping the Sister was right and you were on duty! I am so glad! So very glad!"

Peter gently extricated himself, taking hold of her arms and placing them softly down by her sides. The last thing he needed was for anyone to see him embracing another woman quite like that and he could see the 'girlfriend' comment going from casual jokey observance to serious harm-inducing rumour in minutes. He could also see however, as the other officer quite rightly said, she was _very_ anxious and her exaggerated greeting only served to compound that so.

"I am so sorry!" she exclaimed as he stood in front of her, hands flying to brush down his tunic thinking she had rumpled it. "I went to Nonnatus thinking I might see Chummy, but I've been so neglectful in my correspondence with her that I never knew she wasn't there anymore! The Sister…..Sister Juliette….?"

"Julienne" Peter corrected.

"Sister _Julienne_ told me she'd gone to a Mother and Baby home and I'd have to get the bus up to somewhere called Woodford see her, but Sister kindly said you might be on duty and to come here instead. Sister _Julienne_ said she thought very much that you were on days this week". The words were tumbling from her mouth and Peter was having trouble catching up. "So I came here. To try to find you instead" she concluded quietly. "To see if you were here...and you are".

"Mrs Harb…." Peter began, immediately interrupted.

"Isobel please. We know enough about each other for you to call me Isobel" she replied politely, ever so pleased she had found him, feeling her heart slowly calm but agitation still causing her to wring her hands in distress.

"Isobel" Peter responded, guiding her by the elbow to sit down on one of the rock hard station waiting chairs, wondering if she babbled and flailed her arms any much longer she might just lose her balance and fall down. He did notice her hands were shaking. "What I can do for you?"

It was a winter night and not one for anyone to be walking around the East End in; particularly a stranger to the neighbourhood like Isobel so he cut quickly to the chase.

She swallowed. "I came to see if I could….I would really like to go and visit Chummy and see Freddie but one has no idea which bus to get or even where this Lodge might be, it's getting dark outside and I didn't want to disturb the Sister too much as she looked so very busy". She had no intention of confessing that she had never been on an omnibus in her life and had no idea where to start with bus stops or fares let alone which one might take her to her final destination. That was why she needed help after the taxi had dropped her at Nonnatus' doors.

Peter glanced at the clock on the wall. "If you can wait until six, you could come back to the Lodge with me". He knew his wife hadn't had a letter from her friend in really quite the while and their once frequent correspondence seemed to have gone by the wayside for some months but for her to turn up just like this and in such a hurry to see Camilla?

"Would you?!" Isobel asked, grabbing hold of his hand; gripping harder than perhaps she intended but she ever so needed a port in this particular storm and Chummy might be the only one that would at least try to understand.

"It's a bit of a trek to be honest but with the car it doesn't take more than an hour or so" he replied. Peter was looking forward to going 'home' and after not seeing his wife or son for a week six o'clock on Friday couldn't come soon enough even with some company for the trip. "I wouldn't suggest waiting in here" he continued, suddenly thinking that she was far too well dressed to be hanging around a Poplar police station and he could hear the cursing from someone being bundled through the front door in mid-arrest. The delicate Isobel would soon be seeing the rough end of the place if she stayed very much longer. "The Inspectors in and the cells are nearly full". He thought quickly. "There is a café over the road with a blue awning, go over there and ask for Marian and tell her you are a friend of Sergeant Noakes' wife, that I sent you over and I'll come and get you at six".

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand; less vigorously this time. "I know why my friend married you now".

Peter returned her smile even hadn't though quite factored in a friend of his wife's arriving out of the blue on the doorstep of the station into his Friday night, but there was something up; he could see that and he really couldn't leave her here. "Make sure you ask her for a slice of coconut cake and I don't drink too much of the coffee".

Isobel laughed and nodded. "I will and I won't".

Peter led her out of the side door of the station, avoiding the prisoner on his way in and, having collected her suitcase handed it back to her, watching her totter in her entirely unsuitable high heels over the cobbles to the cafe.

He watched for a moment, wondering what led her here; although the suitcase and the blackening bruise he saw on her wrist as her sleeve rode up when she took his hand told him enough for now until he could get home and to Camilla.


	2. Chapter 2

"One really thinks you need these rather than that…."

Peter slowly opened his eyes to find his wife looming over him with a glass of water in one hand and the other folded out with two white pills on her palm. In _his_ hand was a barely touched glass of whiskey; the thought of which was currently turning his stomach in knots and he placed it on the side table as it held no appeal.

"Thank you" he smiled. He had been sitting in the dark, having managed a page or two of Noddy with Fred until the boy fell asleep in his arms and intended to wait for Camilla if his mind would let him. She'd been downstairs with Isobel and he had started to wonder if he had nodded off for a moment as he certainly didn't hear her come back up; suddenly 'waking' to her voice and her standing in front of him with an expectant look on her face.

"Is she alright?" he asked, taking the glass and the pills.

Chummy sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "One doesn't know", she replied, quietly taking up his left hand. "I did think she was going to have a little blub at one point but no, I said we would talk properly in the morning. When she had had some rest...She looked so desperately weary".

To say she was surprised when Peter appeared with a companion was an understatement. Freddie had been standing at the tall window in her office waiting for Daddy and the moment he saw the headlights and heard the car scrape up the drive he had been out of his Mumma's office before she could blink, trying and failing to open the locked front door as she ran after him to prevent an inopportune escape. She had kissed her husband before she had realised she had an audience and there was a woman standing just behind him; one she very quickly, and of course, recognised, but then confusion had set in.

With only a few brief words, Peter had scooped Freddie up in his arms and Chummy was showing her unexpected visitor to one of the spare bedrooms. Thankfully very few of the girls had been around, apart from Theresa who wouldn't say boo to a goose, so she had walked Isobel upstairs with a quizzical look to her husband and an expression of 'we'll talk about it later' on his face.

Now, after a brief chat and far too many questions that were burning to be asked but would have to wait, Chummy watched him swallow the pills and close his eyes again. The glass of water joined the glass of whiskey; the latter going to remain untouched until she found it festering the next morning both forgetting it was there.

Peter shifted slightly getting comfortable. "Go to bed if you want" Chummy suggested. "I've only a few bits left to do here and just make sure all the girls are tucked up tight".

"Five minutes" Peter replied quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head just breathing in the sweet scent of her strawberry shampoo and the hairspray that always made Freddie sneeze in the most comical fashion.

Chummy sighed and closed her eyes too, resting herself for a minute before her final rounds of the day, wondering too what was going on in the spare bedroom. "So she just turned up at the Station?" she asked.

"Mmmm" Peter replied. "Apparently went to Nonnatus and Sister Julienne sent her up to the Station. Said she didn't know how to get a bus up here".

Chummy let out a short laugh. "That I can believe. She always travelled by chauffeur".

"No", Peter carried on, sighing as he recalled the surprise visit. "She showed up and I thought I'd best bring her up here. Could hardly leave her wandering around Poplar. She wouldn't last five minutes".

"I know. Thank you" she whispered, genuinely grateful that Sister Julienne had pointed her friend in the direction of the Police Station and he was really quite right. Whilst Chummy was more than used to Poplar and its ways now, she knew full well that Isobel most certainly wouldn't be.

"She sounded a bit desperate. Slung her arms around me like I was her saviour", Peter offered, sinking further into the settee as he relaxed for the first time in a fair few hours. Now if only he could get rid of this damn headache. His comment, however, did make Chummy laugh, even though it brought about a look of mock disgust from her husband that he might not be, or could not be, someone's rescuing white knight one day. "Don't know for certain why she was really traipsing around looking for you though. She just seemed quite desperate to find you". He knew he had to mention what he _thought_ she was in Poplar for.

"We haven't written in months" Chummy considered, really not remembering the last letter she had from her and life had been so, well, busy that she had not had a moment to write herself. Perhaps they were both the guilty party. "What do you think happened to her?"

"What do _I_ think happened?" Peter asked, taking a deep breath. "Well I don't think she was coming to the station to pass the time of day. Not judging by that suitcase and Poplar isn't the most enticing of holiday destinations. I'd put money on it she's walked out on that Philip chap".

"Well he is a perfect arse" his wife observed casually.

"Camilla!"

"Well he is" she insisted, not particularly feeling she needed to justify her opinion, but still. "You saw what he was like a the wedding. Prancing around like he was the master of all he surveyed. _Including_ Isobel".

Peter would concede that as it was by and large nothing but a truth. "Yes. I'd agree but still you can find out tomorrow. I need to go to the barbers…."

"So does Fred. He looks like a little wild lion". The sight of him running across the grass this morning with his mane of hair flying left and right still caused her to smile, but she had to admit that she had waited for Peter to come home to take the boy to the barber. There was something about that small village shop that made her uncomfortable.

"Then we'll both go to the village and you can talk to her in peace" Peter replied, thinking he might take Fred out for a drive too; imagining with a smile the sight of his precious boy careering across the lawn to his Mumma.

"Yes I'll do that". The home this last week had seen the departures of a number of girls and with only a few in residence Chummy had found that on the odd occasion she had time on her hands, so she may just have the opportunity to talk to her and see. Peter didn't have to excuse himself but Chummy did concede that maybe with Freddie out of the way more than her husband, she might be able to talk to her friend without distraction.

Peter though could feel himself drifting off to sleep and knew he had to get up before he was there for the night. He did need to ask her another question. "Did you notice anything about her?"

"Isobel?" Chummy asked.

"Hmm..."

"No, not really" she replied. She was still getting over the shock of seeing her to be honest so taking a close inspection of her demeanour had been pushed into second place.

"So you didn't notice her arm?" he asked.

Chummy thought for a second as she sat up, wondering where this was going and needing to look at him rather than stare into space at the flickering fire. "No?"

Peter opened his eyes, sitting up too, and took hold of her wrist wrapping his fingers around her skin, but not holding on too tight. If they had been standing up it might look as though he was pulling her along. "How many times have I said to you to be careful when you went on home visits to certain tenements or to certain families?" he asked, considering where their hands were now wrapped in each others; him still holding on.

"Too many times" she responded, really quite sadly. She hadn't, at first, taken his lectures about her safety to heart but as time rolled on she more than saw why he insisted so.

"And why did I say it?" Peter asked, looking up, capturing her gaze and by some magic force keeping her concentration to him.

"Because some of the women have appeared in the station making complaints about their husbands and you don't want anything to happen to me or any of the girls" she replied.

"And I have to turn every single one away that does appear as I have no confidence that I can keep a charge running". He saw her nod, but she could feel the hold on her wrist become slightly tighter as he pondered. "Because there is nothing I can do about it as I know none of them will stand up in Court and give evidence, even though they appear at the station time and time again with black eyes...bruises on their arms... They go back because being thumped is better than being on the streets".

"Why are you holding my wrist like that?" Chummy asked tentatively.

Peter discretely let go. "Did you not notice _anything_ about Isobel?"

"You're worrying me Peter" Chummy replied as he took her hand up again and pressed his lips close to where his hand had previously lay making a silent apology.

"The marks on her arm. Bruises" he said bluntly as a cold sweat ran from the top of her head to her toes. "You said he was an arse" Peter continued, "and she had bruises on her arm. I don't think she intended me to see, but a woman turns up a police station with a suitcase, you only tend to think of one reason why. All over her arm".

Chummy frowned. "One really can't bring something like that up out of nowhere and it is an awful leap to go from that... to that". Chummy was hesitant to say the words even though she knew full well why he was raising it with her. It was all too odd and mysterious for her friend to turn up like this, unannounced, at her former place of work and with a suitcase in tow. It did seem an easy conclusion to come to; even if she desperately hoped he was wrong.

"I'll take Fred for a long trip to the barber's tomorrow to see if you can talk to her" Peter replied, trying to be helpful, seeing her carefully nod in acceptance but he was not entirely sure it was agreement.

"How do I do that though Peter? How do I ask her something like that? Really?"


	3. Chapter 3

So with Freddie and Peter packed off in the car, Chummy now knew she hadn't much time or choice in the matter left. She had dawdled from the kitchen, satisfied the few girls there were clearing up their lunch dishes and, putting one foot on the bottom stair, looked up the steps in quiet contemplation of her impending fate.

What if Peter was right? He saw more of the likes of this almost every day of the week and he must have felt he had seen enough to even bring it up with her. If there was no trouble, well, she might hope Isobel might be thankful that her friend was worried for her safety, but what if there was trouble? If she was in that boat would she welcome other people's interference in her marriage or would she push them away like she feared her friend might do? As she stood on the step, in her own world, she found no answer to her question.

"Sister?"

"Sister?"

Chummy snapped out of her daze and turned, resting her palms on the banister. "So sorry, Deborah. What can I help you with?"

The heavily pregnant girl smiled; already with her coat ready to be put on. "Connie and I were wondering if we might go into town this afternoon?"

Chummy thought for a second. "For?"

"To go to see Mrs Morton" Deborah replied. Sister always insisted you asked permission if you wanted to leave the grounds but most of the time, the girls knew, she never really said 'no' but it was still polite, and indeed a house rule, to ask.

"Of course" Chummy replied, hearing the name of one of the elderly benefactors of the home. "Perhaps you could say hello to her for me as well and tell her I will pop in with Freddie on Sunday after church? Just make sure you are back here for four o'clock".

"We will Sister. Thank you"

The girl turned on her heels and with no more interruptions, Chummy walked upstairs. Just a quick run around to make sure all the beds were made and then….

"Does your mother know where you are?" Chummy asked as she sat with Isobel in the office. She had done her rounds and found Isobel upstairs, staring out of the window of the fourth floor bedroom across the vast grounds. She hadn't really been sure if she should be interrupting Chummy whilst she was working and she really had no appetite for the lunch the girls had made, even though there had been an offer so she had come up here.

Isobel shook her head. "She's taken herself off up to Yorkshire. To see her sister. My aunt Ottilie" she added quickly knowing how many sisters her mother had.

"Do you not think you ought to telephone her then?" Chummy asked, knowing how close they were. "If she telephones the house and gets Philip…."

"He's in Rome" Isobel answered flatly, absently spinning her engagement ring; the large diamond catching the light.

"Oh?"

"Yes" she replied "He went the day before yesterday. One didn't really ask why…" Isobel continued contemplating, to Chummy she sounded hesitant. "He goes quite often. Rome… or Vienna sometimes too. Paris. Berlin". He only ever told her it was 'business' and she never asked any more.

"Well if she telephones and gets _nobody_ ….." Chummy knew she was pushing, but she knew Isobel's mother too and knew, quite genuinely, she would be more than worried if the telephone rang and rang away.

"Mary will make up an excuse for me…" Isobel responded in what sounded like an almost dismissal of her question; her friend clearly forgetting in her life with a paucity of help or other people to run around after your every need that Lowndes Square was teeming with servants from floor to ceiling.

"So the staff know you've…."

"Left?" Isobel responded, raising her eyes for the first time in a while to her friend. "In as many words, yes. She said she will tell people I am having a few days by the sea. That's what I told her and even if she thought otherwise she is so loyal she would still say it regardless. She will even tell Mother that".

Isobel reached across for her tea cup, sitting on her friend's desk and Chummy saw precisely what Peter had seen, eyes wandering to the exposed skin unbidden. Yes, that did look like someone had grabbed her around the wrist; really quite firmly. So that's what he was thinking about last night when he held onto her; perhaps wondering how to tell her of his suspicions.

Could she just say ' _Why, Isobel, dear girl, what is that I saw on your arm when you reached for your cup of tea?'_

Could she?

"I do adore little Freddie…." Isobel said suddenly taking a sip of tea, seeing a frame on the large oak desk of what may perhaps have been Freddie's first photograph, all wrapped up in his blankets and peeping out towards the camera. Chummy wasn't the first of her close friends to have a baby by any means but she was perhaps the only one that realised that the world was not such a gilded place and she had been dying to properly meet the boy for months.

Chummy smiled. The very mention of her boy made her heart melt and temporarily forget her dilemma. "He is such a handsome chap isn't he…. Gets it from his Daddy; certainly not from his Mumma's side!"

She saw Isobel blink quickly and swallow. It was almost indiscernible but she saw it nevertheless, Chummy admittedly wondering if it was her mention of Peter that did it as she could hear full well that her voice softened at the thought. "We've been so lucky with him" Chummy smiled. She pressed her lips together, wondering whether she could start to steer the conversation as they sat. "So no luck on that front with you then?" By a very quick calculation Isobel must have been married a good couple of years but if not she was fast approaching it and whilst Chummy would freely admit to herself that this was a marriage of convenience, surely after all this time she might have developed a little affection for her husband?

"No, no…we…." Isobel paused. "The marriage was….well let me say it was founded in the eyes of God and is legal in all terms it can be, but…." It struck her long ago that her friend clearly married for love and she and Peter did look rather comfortable with each other. "What's normal?" she asked quickly, before she could be too mortified to wonder.

"Sorry?" Chummy asked, raising her eyebrows.

"What's normal?" Isobel repeated. "Between a husband and wife. What's normal when you get married?"

Chummy could feel a flush rise across her cheeks; knowing what the couched words meant. "One has no idea. I lived with Nuns. One tended not to ask too many questions like that". By the time she did get married, she simply didn't know. That was the moment she wished she had a mother to talk to and to talk to Peter's mother would simply be too impossible.

"Sorry, no!" Isobel replied shocked at her own audacity and waving her hand nervously. "Of course! How rude of me. One is interminably sorry".

Chummy shook her head and waved it away. "He is…" she began, wondering if she could move the conversation again back to where it needed to be. "He is civil to you?"

"As he can be" Isobel replied cryptically, still not realising that she had accidentally exposed the bruises once already and not realising at all that she was being led by her friend. "We do talk and he does take me out entertaining and we do have people for supper. Mother is there….I know people can have an opinion of him Chummy and it's one…it's one that I can see why people think that" Isobel carried on, somehow feeling she needed to justify any sleight on her husband, although God knows why. "Privately, he can be really quite agreeable at times".

Chummy thought for a second. She knew Philip Harbottle of old. Agreeable meant friendly, affable, pleasant….things he had never been in her presence. Peter didn't think a great deal of him after their own encounters at the wedding but was he really as she had said behind closed doors? Of course, people behave differently in their own homes but agreeable, really?! Chummy found that hard to believe.

Still, putting aside prejudice - if you could call it that – the issue still loomed large.

"So where did you go on honeymoon again?" Chummy asked.

"Rome. Oddly" Isobel added quickly with a laugh at the co-incidence. "He seems to like going back there. The hotel was heavenly though I would say. I will give him that choice and we dined well, went to the theatre, vineyards, saw the Trevi Fountain, Galleria Borghese, the Coliseum. everywhere I wanted to go, we went…..you stayed here, didn't you?"

"Yes" Chummy replied, not sure if Ramsgate could match up. "No vineyards or art galleries to visit on the Kent coast though…." Not that she was complaining.

Isobel smiled back at her. She remembered her doubts expressed to her friend in the sun room just the day before the wedding and her capitulation to please her mother and to save them from ruin. Why she hadn't had the strength to run then…take off and Chummy had been right; she and mother _would_ manage. It would be hard but they would manage. It might have saved all this heartache now, but she would not burden her friend. Just a few days away from London would do her the world of good and put it all into perspective.

Chummy though, was slowly realising she was getting nowhere as both women heard the front door go and Freddie's feet running across the hallway, Peter's behind him telling him to walk not run before he fell over.

"One had better…" Chummy said, knowing Freddie would be through the door in seconds and indeed he was; never one for knocking before he arrived and a moment later he burst through the office door. She was sure Peter had said he was going to keep him out for as long as possible, but the sky did look rather heavy laden and perhaps that was what had caused them to come back and interrupt. Chummy knew she would have no chance now.

She undid his coat and immediately she could see Freddie was trying to scratch his back. "Mumma all itchy! Barber made me scratch" he whined.

Chummy kneeled down to him, brushing those annoying stray cuts of hair that still lingered on his chest and what must have been irritating him where he couldn't reach He looked so grown up in his winter duffel coat, wellingtons and with his rather extreme cut. She was going to comment that her little lion had almost turned into a billiard ball, looking up and finding Peter scratching his shoulder. "I think that barber nearly scalped us" he commented, now running a hand over the top of his head. "Still it's that short it'll pass inspection for us both".

Chummy bit her tongue to comment on Freddie. Whilst her husband might have had rules and regulations and uniform inspections; her little monster looked so different. Her inspection of her troops almost found that her youngest soldier didn't pass muster as for a moment she almost mourned the loss of those blonde curls. She decided not to say anything to Peter as he'd only tell her it would grow back soon enough.

Peter widened his eyes at his wife in silent question as Isobel got up with a smile to him and knelt down to Freddie too, taking over the back scratching as their boy giggled at her.

She had no opportunity to answer him, except for scrunch of her nose.

He took that as a no.


	4. Chapter 4

When there was an ambulance outside the Home, Peter tended to stay as far away as he could, but this time Freddie had his nose pressed to the attic window watching the commotion below. It was really past his bedtime but the boy was staging a one-man protest that Mumma was _still_ downstairs and not tucking him in.

They had managed pyjamas and teeth but the final step was currently eluding his father when the boy had run off from the bathroom towards the window, hearing something going on below them.

"Fred come on mate" Peter said from the other side of the room. "Time for bed".

"No" the boy replied, not looking back at him and still staring at the drive with scowl on his face. "Wait for Mumma". The words were insistent, an order and were certainly not a question. As much as he now adored he could converse with his son on at least a basic level, Peter had quickly come to realise that Fred's opinions on certain matters were far from what he or Camilla might like. Peter knew it was hardly a shouting at offence that he simply wanted Camilla to put him to bed, but…

"No, now Freddie please" Peter repeated however the boy continued to ignore his father as he walked across to him. "Fred, bedtime. Now", he emphasised, holding out his hand towards his son. The ambulance was pulling away now and with nothing more to look at, Freddie turned to his father and slid off the window seat, seeing a look on his Daddy's face that made him realise that if didn't move that second, there could well be consequences. "Mumma will still tuck you in, but she'll be upset if you're not in bed".

Mumma being upset usually worked better on Freddie than Mumma being angry and he took Peter's hand.

Downstairs, Chummy closed the front door and pulled the bolt tight across, feeling something rub her leg. She'd not noticed the not so stray cat that frequented the grounds had obviously crept in and was now making its presence felt. "Oh what-ho you little monkey", she said, leaning down and stroking its head as it purred at her. "One rather thinks you live here now the amount of time you spend here..…"

It followed her upstairs, first in search of the now dwindling number of girls, all of them now sharing one of the big front rooms for company to make sure everyone was ship shape. Soon enough they would all come down, inevitably together, to make their supper and the cat would be scrounging for a saucer of milk. Then it would curl up in the sitting room for a nap. Yes, no matter how hard she tried otherwise, it did seem to live here now.

Worryingly, Isobel had disappeared some hours ago and Chummy gently knocked on the bedroom door where she had been housed. Nothing. She knocked again, pushing the unlocked door slightly open, being polite and all of that. To her relief she saw her friend's coat still hanging and her suitcase at the foot of the bed so she must not have gone far.

If ideal worlds existed, she would just ask her right out and face the question. _"Did your husband do that to you?" "Have you told the Police?" "Has he done it before?"  
_

She sighed loudly and closed the door shut. Chummy didn't know how long Isobel was planning to stay. Was it the 'few days' at 'the sea' she had told her housekeeper or just long enough for her mother to come back from Yorkshire so she had an ally in that house? Chummy turned and saw her missing friend walking towards her.

"Sorry, old girl" Chummy said, "Was just looking to see if you were in residence!"

Isobel smiled. "One just went for a wander around the gardens. Fresh air". She went to walk past her friend but Chummy stopped her with a hand on her arm; not realising she had placed her palm right over the bruises and for a split second Chummy wondered if she had hurt her.

"If you ever want to talk to me about anything you know you can. We were always the best of friends".

"We were" Isobel replied, sadness more than evident in her voice as the pair stood stock still in the hallway; the few seconds feeling like hours. If she admitted her real troubles, still, what on earth could anyone do about them now? She couldn't up and go permanently; she would shame herself and Mother, putting them both out on the streets. He was her husband. He should be obeyed and if not? It was too much and besides, there was more to tell than she ever thought anyone else might comprehend. Things she was guilty of too that she must repent upon. Things that _caused_ her husband to react looked up at her friend. "One might, if you don't mind, have an early night".

With that the pair departed in separate ways and upstairs, through the floor, Chummy could hear the second telephone line ringing. Knowing Peter was up there and would answer it, she strolled upstairs to the attics, mind torn.

As he was speaking on the telephone she crept past to, as promised, tuck their son into bed. He was already lying there stock still and clearly fighting the fact that his eyes were closing by the time she got there As she leant down to kiss Fred goodnight, gently patting down a tuft of hair ruffled no doubt when Peter was putting his vest on, she felt a hand brush her hip and lower back.

"Who was on the telephone?" she asked Peter who was standing behind her.

"State secret" he replied, not remotely joking. "If I tell you I'll have to drug you to make you forget!" Chummy threw a glance at him and raised an eyebrow, tucking the blanket around her son and standing up properly. "I'm serious unfortunately" he said, even though she was smiling at him as though he was having a jape.

"Not even a clue?" she asked, deciding to employ her best eyelash fluttering technique but he was having none of it.

"It was the Inspector", Peter replied, relenting to give her a very basic response, "and he doesn't want me in on a day tomorrow, but to come in at five in the afternoon instead. To go through a briefing that he wants me to give". Hopefully she might hear what he was implying. He knew what it was about – something that had been in the offing for quite a while - but it would seem tomorrow night was the day, as it were.

"Oh!" Chummy replied knowingly, satisfied Freddie was well on his way to sleep now and walking past her husband to the sitting room. He followed. "A _raid_ then" she emphasised, looking back at him on her way to the settee. "Where?"

"State secret Camilla" Peter repeated, sitting down next to her, knowing she had hit the nail on the head. "I really can't say. Speaking of secrets" he continued, diverting her attention away from his telephone call. "How did you get on with Isobel?

"Nowhere" she replied heavily. "I saw the bruising and it does look like someone had grabbed her. Possibly….but she isn't for talking tonight or doing very much at all it would seem."

"Well you can only keep trying Camilla".

"I know" she responded. "One might see if I can get her involved with the girls tomorrow. Perhaps sit in with them with Mrs Lucas' classes". Mrs Lucas was a dear old girl from the village that, in conversation with Chummy one day whilst she was shopping, revealed she used to teach Music and would be only too pleased to visit the Lodge. The old piano in the upstairs study had been dusted off and retuned and some of the girls seemed really rather receptive to learning something in the short time they were there, so two or even three times a week she would visit.

Speaking of which, Peter suddenly had a thought. "I saw a couple of the girls in the village this afternoon. Debbie? And is Connie the other? Short blonde hair?"

"Yes" Chummy replied, knowing how inseparable these two where. "They were going to see Mrs Morton".

"Are you quite sure about that?" Peter asked, making her think,

"I believe so….. Why?"

"When Fred and I came out of the barbers, I saw them on the other side of the street. With some chap" Peter responded, almost but not quite sure it was them as he was more concerned with getting back to the car as it was spitting with rain. "Black hair…. in army uniform".

"The father of Connie's child is in the Army" Chummy noted. " _Apparently_ he is. Why she couldn't just tell me she was going to meet him….." Peter felt her exhale deeply in frustration. "I don't _mind_ them having visitors and the mother told me they were all on particularly good terms with the boy".

"Sort it out tomorrow" Peter replied putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling her tight to him. "She's back so its not like she's run off with him".

"Yes that's probably a good idea" she responded settling closer. "Was Fred alright at the barbers?"

"Yes perfectly" Peter replied with a smile, remembering Freddie's face when he opened the door to the shop. "Shot in there like a bullet. The barber's wife has a _puppy_ ".

"Oh…" Chummy responded.

"Yes, little black thing. Not sure what it was. Just a mongrel but it got Fred over the doorstep so I refuse to complain" Peter smiled. "Besides, now Whiskey is here anyway, it's probably good for him to have a pet".

"Whiskey?" his wife asked, confused.

"The cat"

She sat up and looked at him.

"The cat" Peter repeated, really quite concerned himself at the befuddled look on her face. "He was going to be called Whiskers but Fred christened him Whiskey. I'm not sure it was accidental". Peter had realised it was probably because Freddie had seen him drink the spirit and Whiskers and Whiskey didn't sound all too different to young ears.

"Why did I not know this?" Chummy asked, wondering what on earth else was going on under her roof, and indeed inside her own family now it seemed she had a family of four overnight.

"No idea!" Peter laughed. "But it seems we now have a cat that may just be expected to live up here with us and go wherever we go" he concluded as she lay back down again, shaking her head and at a loss for words at the pet they seemed to have now gained. "Much to do tonight? Peter asked.

"For once… no". There were only four girls in residence now, now Diane had gone to the Hospital tonight and none of them seemed to be very much trouble at all which she was silently pleased about.

"Good" Peter replied pressing a kiss to her temple. "You need a rest".

She would admit that breathing in the fact he was so warm her eyes were closing but it was too early to sleep. She had to do her rounds and then make supper for them both, put some washing in the new machine (how heavenly it was rather than being up to her elbows in the sink) and then she might think about resting and turning her mind to Isobel again.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell me what the Inspectors telephone call was about?" she asked. She was curious but it was really more that incessant worry in the back of her mind of not knowing where he was going or what situation he was being presented with that forced the question from her lips. This would be particularly true in his now slightly loftier position of Sergeant as it was not the first time he had had to take charge of an operation. Other times he would tell her straight out though.

"I really can't Camilla" Peter replied, wishing he could give her a clue but this operation was really rather confidential. "Really. Not this time".

Trouble was that response made her worry even more.


	5. Chapter 5

Chummy watched as Peter pulled on his tunic, brushing it down once the buttons were done up looking as smart as he ever did.

"Do you know what time you might be back?" she asked tentatively from her seat on the bed. It was coming up to four o'clock and he had to be there for five.

Peter shook his head, taking one last glance at himself in the long bedroom mirror before he turned on his heels to face her. "You know how these things can go sometimes Camilla. I wouldn't hold out much hope for me until at least eight tomorrow morning". Chummy sighed before he took a pace towards her and sat down. "It will be fine. I will be fine".

She nodded quickly feeling his palm rest on her cheek. "Have a nice evening, read Fred a story, speak to Isobel about anything you like but don't sit here worrying about me". Peter leant up and kissed her, lingering, telling her in words he couldn't find that he loved her so very much. He didn't like it when she sat at home worrying about him. At least with Isobel here, and the girls, she had distractions and company. Peter knew himself how quiet it could get if he was alone in the house with Freddie and the boy was having an afternoon nap.

Some moments later, with a sleepy Freddie in her arms, she walked downstairs with him and they both waved husband and father goodbye for the night.

A cup of tea and a cup of blackcurrant juice later, Chummy heard a gentle knock on the door to her office. She had retreated there with Fred to finish off another begging letter to the Council and she had every plan to pop upstairs to Isobel, but the lady in question must have had the same idea. She saw Isobel's head peek around the door, eyes resting immediately on Freddie who was pottering around and 'digging up' the office carpet with a bright blue bucket and spade that had come home with him from his last trip to Walton on the Naze.

"One was wondering if you would like me to look after him for a while?" she asked. "Let you have some peace to do some work?"

Chummy smiled and put her pen down, having been just about to seal the envelope. "Do you know its quite alright. Everything I need to do has been done" She paused. "I was just about to come up to you to see what you wanted to do about supper. One of the girls made a stew this afternoon and it looks really rather lovely".

It was quickly decided that, leaving the girls in the dining room, they would retreat to the attics and eat there.

Isobel watched in fascination at her friend's interaction with her son; cutting up his potato for him and praising him when his plate was cleared. She watched the boy smile at his Mumma with a look of adoration that, when she looked, she could see on the faces of both mother _and_ son.

"You make that look easy" Isobel smiled, her voice wistful at the scene in front of her very eyes.

"We have our way, don't we handsome?" Chummy smiled, brushing her thumb over the boy's cheek. No, Mumma still didn't like his hair. "And as my handsome boy has finished all his stew, Mumma thinks she _might_ just let him have some of Mrs Morton's chocolate cake".

"Cake!" Freddie exclaimed. "Cake please!"

The cake brought to the table, Isobel's eyes widened, let alone Freddie's. "One knows…" Chummy whispered conspiratorially. "She brings two up every week – one for us and one for the girls. It's a battle to keep Peter and Freddie away from them!"

"It looks absolutely divine!" Isobel responded. "Doesn't it Freddie? Absolutely divine!"

"Abboblutely divine!" he replied, copying her as his mother suppressed a smile. That would inevitably end up as his phrase of the week and soon enough Chummy would be having to explain to her husband where he got it from. She'd also have to save him a piece of cake otherwise he'd never forgive her!

In time Freddie was officially in bed and Isobel sat with Chummy on the settee, fire lit and the place felt so cosy. Both women's eyes were closing but in the silence, an opportunity presented itself.

"Belle?" Chummy asked out of the blue. "One isn't throwing you out onto the dark streets or anything, but do you have any idea how long you might be staying?"

"I think until mother comes back from Yorkshire" Isobel replied, watching the flames in the fire as they mesmerised her. "If I am back before she gets to Lowndes Square she will never think I have been away".

Chummy nodded carefully, wondering whether she could ask if Isobel would tell her mother, after all, where she had been or the reasons for it, about to ask the question herself until she was interrupted in thought. "Would you like me to oversee the girls at breakfast tomorrow?" Isobel asked. "I will feel useful".

"One won't turn down the offer!" Chummy replied. An extra few minutes in bed would be heaven; not having to throw on her uniform or rush Freddie to brush his teeth...

"Good" Isobel smiled. "if you want me to do anything just say so"

"I will" Chummy responded as Isobel saw her eyes wander to a photograph on the mantelpiece of Peter and Freddie. It was only taken a few weeks ago; the pair of them smiling up at her as she took the picture. It wasn't bad for a first attempt.

"There will be a very good reason why he couldn't tell you what he was doing tonight you know" Isobel noted. She had seen Peter go off and, with Freddie squashed between them as they stood on the drive way, the kiss and hug that followed. She would only admit to herself that there was a momentary stab of jealousy as she watched from the upstairs window, having caught sight of them quite by accident as she traversed her way downstairs. "He won't keep you in the dark out of any choice of his own".

"Yes, one knows that" Chummy replied. She knew that of course. "One tends to think all kinds of horrid things when he's not here and one just prefers to know..."

"I do that too. When Philip is away…except…." Chummy let her continue as it would seem, for a moment, that she may be about to open up. "Except, its not whether he is safe or all of those things. Its _where_ he is… who he might be with…."

Chummy mustered up some courage and took a dive in. "Belle….do you think he is having an affair?" She thought she saw a twitch on her friends face, as though the nail had been hit painfully and abruptly and without apparent mercy.

"I don't know" Isobel responded thoughtfully, carefully choosing her words. "One did wonder if he was, but he says he isn't and not to be silly. He said it was preposterous".

"Do you believe him?"

"Would you believe Peter if he said he wasn't having an affair, even if you thought he was?" Isobel asked. Isobel had no answer to the question herself. She wanted to believe the man she had married was true to her, even putting aside the undoubted fact that the arrangement was of a monetary nature, convenient for all parties it would seem.

Chummy knew, hoped, it was a hypothetical question and answered honestly. "I'd have to believe him for Freddie's sake". As much as she knew in her heart of hearts that he had promised before God never to stray, she also knew enough about human nature that even her quiet, home-loving husband had desires and feelings too. She only hoped she was still such a good enough wife that he would never think, let alone do.

"I don't have a child…" Isobel responded, almost on the verge of tears. Now she had said it out loud, she felt rather foolish but she had no-one to talk to - no-one at all - and mother would just tell her to turn a blind eye. He was a man after all. Either that or to stop her imagination away with itself. "I think I provoke him…...Provoke him into saying really quite horrid things".

Chummy had to ask. "Does he _do_ quite horrid things too?"

"Sergeant! Sergeant Noakes!"

Peter looked up from his place at the bottom of the rickety stairs to find a Nun looming over the equally as wobbly bannister. Sister Evangelina to be exact and his heart and stomach in unison immediately hit the floor, settled down and refused to get up again.

"Will you kindly please tell me what in the Lord's blessed name is going on!?"

He swallowed and nodded to the officer he was standing with and walked upstairs. The raid that his wife had guessed was happening was occurring all around them; officers running from room to room of the dingy brothel, shouts bouncing from every wall and unfortunately, it would seem, there was an unexpected addition tonight.

"Apologies, Sister" he said, very quickly realising that the Sister had retreated to the room where there was clearly a birthing mother. "We have had this raid planned for some time". The woman, prostrate on the bed, shot the officer a flirty glance and a wink. He knew her; arrested her that many times he had lost count and couldn't say he appreciated the 'affection'.

"Alright Sarge" she said with another wink and a smirk. "Havent' seen you lot in 'ere of a night for a few weeks".

"Annie" Peter replied politely until he suddenly realised where he was; that in front of him was a woman with her modesty only and barely covered with a white sheet and a very new born in her arms. He shot around, out of respect and embarrassment, so he had his back to them as he stood in the doorway.

"Really Sergeant" Sister Evangelina sighed from her seat back on the bed, snapping on a fresh pair of surgical gloves with sufficient vigour. "Your wife was in this position not so long ago. Surely _even you_ realise that babies don't come from under gooseberry bushes?!"

The words 'no she wasn't in _that_ position' flitted into his head before he was told in no uncertain terms to close the door and go away, hearing the girl on the bed cackling away. Peter dismissed them both from his mind. There was a more important task at hand tonight and as he stood outside the door for a second he heard a loud scuffle going on in the room opposite. Peter shot across the corridor to the source of the noise; seeing two of his officers wrestling a much taller – and very much half naked – man to the ground.

One of the girls stood shaking in the corner, tears streaming down her face with a sheet pulled up around her to protect her modesty as the sight unfolded before her. It wasn't so much the girls that the police were interested in tonight - they could wait another day - but more so their visitors and one or two in particular.

Between the three of them they 'gently persuaded' their man to put some clothes back on and he left the two officers to haul him down the stairs. Peter had to account for each and every officer tonight and he was the last to leave the disrupted building to a few jeers and a fair number of wolf-whistles from the girls.

It only dawned on him on his break back at the Station, breathing in the steam from a welcome cup of tea, as to who he had seen half- naked and being hauled down the stairs.

Or at least he thought it was him.


	6. Chapter 6

Peter was lost in his own world, gently closing the back door to the Home shut tight. He knew the bolt would still be on the front door so had wandered around the back; seeing the dining room light on as the gentle glow cast shadows onto the lawn. It was half past seven in the morning, a touch earlier than his estimate; even though he knew Camilla would to all intents and purposes be up and about already so it didn't really matter.

Closing the door behind himself, he heard feet tumbling down the narrow passageway. Little feet and, even in the haze of tiredness and a wandering mind, he easily recognised who it just might be and deliberately, quite deliberately, ignored them. Waiting, pretending not to notice he had company, Peter felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around his leg in a strangling grip.

"Daddy! Daddy see me…."

Peter spun around, his son still attached to leg, and the boy grinning up at him. "Hello mate!" he exclaimed picking the boy up and bouncing him up in the air and onto his hip. "Daddy Home!" Freddie announced, hugging him and wiping most of the crumbs around his mouth from his breakfast all over his father's face.

Peter sighed, tightening his hold on the boy, now relaxing for a moment at the small arms around his neck and the every ready smile the boy seemed to have whenever he saw him that Peter really still didn't comprehend. "Yes he is. Daddy's home…." He pressed a kiss to Freddie's forehead looking up to see Isobel standing in the other doorway.

"Sorry" she responded, smiling at the pair, arms folded across herself. "I was shepherding him for his breakfast and he rather ran off when he heard the door ".

"It's quite alright" Peter replied, wondering for a moment where his wife was; if only to find out why Freddie was running around with no slippers or dressing gown on. He knew his wife wouldn't let him out of the attics in just his pyjamas. "Where's Camilla?"

"I said to Chummy" Isobel clarified as she walked across to them, brushing more crumbs off Freddie's blue striped top, "that I would supervise the girls and Freddie at breakfast and told to her to have a lie in for a change. A rest".

"And she accepted?" Peter asked raising an eyebrow.

"I gave her no choice" Isobel responded with a determined smile and arms outstretched to take the toddler back. "One knows one can't deliver a baby or even change a nappy, but one is capable of making sure four girls and one little boy have their breakfast and tidy up after themselves and I told her that straight and one wouldn't be having it any other way".

With that she took Freddie off Peter and the latter made his way up to the steep steps to the attics with a smile on his face at this turn of events.

Instead of finding her up and about as he half expected - knowing she was never one for idleness - the attics were quiet and undoing his tunic, Peter found her still fast asleep curled up in bed. For once, he was more than glad that Isobel had landed on them. He kicked off his boots into a pile at the bottom of the bed and, not having the will to change any further for the moment, sat down on the edge of the bed on top of the covers and settled down for two minutes, turning so his stomach was against her back.

In dreams, Chummy was almost sure the bed moved, very nearly sure she felt someone beside her but certainly sure of the pull she felt on the ribbon that adorned the neck of her nightdress as she was brought from slumber by her sudden company.

"How was the raid?" she asked sleepily, turning over into his arms to receive a kiss.

"Bumped into Sister Evangelina" Peter replied, far more interested in the fact that in very swift time, he had undone the ribbon and really didn't want to talk about the night's events until the fog of tiredness had lifted. Not with what was bothering him, needing to know whether he was right or wrong.

"Physically or metaphorically?" Chummy asked with a smile, gently placing her hand on his to stop him for a moment as she was interested.

"Perhaps a little bit of both" Peter replied, sneaking his hand away even though she was thoroughly ignoring the fact he was trying to divest her of her nightdress.

"So did you arrest every one you needed to?"

"Pretty much" Peter replied, the briefing from the raid fresh in his mind. "We certainly got one of the people we were looking for. Including someone we didn't expect, but gift horses and all of that..." It had only been someone they had been looking for that had dodged arrest weeks ago, so they would not be turning their sudden finding down.

She shuffled a little closer, still determined to know where and what this secretive operation was about, comforted that her agitated heart was that he was back safe and sound to her, but still... "So can you tell me where it was then?" She was hoping in a slightly sleepy vulnerable state and the fact that given he was intent it seemed on having his way with her that one or two sound moves on her behalf and she would be able to squeeze it out of him.

"The Albany" he replied easily, the name muffled by the fact that he had his head now buried in her neck.

"Ah!" she replied, knowingly, even though she had closed her eyes again unable to entirely ignore him. One of the more infamous Poplar brothels had called him tonight it seemed. "But that place gets raided month in month out Peter. You could have said..."

She felt him shake his head. "Not this time. No who we were looking for."

Chummy sighed and tightening her arm around his middle, feeling what little will she had to resist him slipping away. "If you insist". She didn't have the energy to ask any questions, dropping a hand to his shirt collar buttons. "Peter?" she asked after a moment. He had his eyes closed, still more interested in her neck. "Why have you got…." She ran her finger across the offending red mark on the collar of his shirt and pressed it to her lips. "Strawberry jam on your shirt?"

"That will be your son" he replied, withdrawing from her. "He found me when I came in"

"And one supposes he had it all over his face?" she asked, rubbing it away from her skin.

"Near enough" Peter replied, nodding as Chummy quietly laughed and shook her head, brushing the remnants of her son's breakfast off the blue police shirt having wondered how her son might be faring in Isobel's hands. "You'll get sticky now" Peter responded quietly, fighting and failing to stop a yawn. "I'll get changed….in a minute".

"And if don't get up now, you fall asleep in your uniform" she replied, pushing his hip away from her over the covers, feeling him resist the shove, suddenly missing the fact that he seemed to have given up the caresses on her skin.

"Camilla…"

"Up and out." She gently pushed him again and Peter groaned out of mock annoyance and more than little tiredness. "If you don't I'll have to help…."

He opened his eyes slightly and looked at her. "Threat or promise?"

"It depends whether you stop spreading strawberry jam all over the bedclothes…..!" she smiled.

Peter sighed and kissed her gently on the lips, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "Did you get the chance to speak to Isobel?" he asked, unbuttoning the offending shirt.

She sat up, playfully pulling his shirt tails from the back of his trousers, knowing she was about to give a vague answer to his question. "In a way".

"That doesn't sound promising….." he commented, turning to her or a moment as she adjusted the pillow behind her back, just content for the moment to talk to him as she knew, yet again, that she had truly failed to tackle her friend this time.

"Well…. We talked about him….." Chummy began. "And we talked and I did ask her…not directly about the bruises... but if he ever behaved in a way that…well, there might be physical contact between them…"

"And?"

"She denied it. Said it was preposterous" she replied, remembering her friends words almost exactly. "She used that word when she said she addressed him because she thought he was having an affair".

"And is he?" Peter asked, bending down to take off his socks.

Chummy shrugged, folding her arms across her self. "I wouldn't put it past him. You saw what he was like at the wedding…." She knew she was ever so slightly prejudiced against Philip Harbottle, knowing what she knew of him over these almost twenty years that she had known, and known of, him but she valued her friendship with Isobel and whilst she had stepped close to the line, she had not jumped over.

"He was also quite complimentary about her when he wasn't in front of everyone else…" he replied. Peter recalled that visit to the wine cellars vividly; a lot more sober than his companion, but it would seem that the alcohol had lubricated his vocal chords and he had passed the odd rather amiable comment about his now wife. It was almost as though the bravado slipped.

"Be that as it may" she replied as he stood up. "She just avoided the question…it makes me think it's true". Chummy paused for a moment, seeing him sling his trousers over the back of her dressing table chair. "You do say that sometimes all you hear is them defending the husband. Saying it was their fault. They provoked him..…" She saw Peter nod. "She said that she thought she provoked him into _saying_ things but says she is going home just before her mother gets back from Yorkshire". It had struck her that Isobel may be staying longer, wondering how she would willingly put herself at risk; but then again, Chummy was not completely at ease with how she might react if she was in her friends position. Neither of them had any real true evidence that his suspicions were true.

Peter was not entirely sure his wife had asked as directly as he might have done but for today he was willing to take her word for it. Whatever was happening under her friend's roof she was safe from it here and he knew how close his wife and her schoolfriend had once been. "We'll think about it after a good night's...days... sleep….Besides…." He stopped himself, standing in the middle of the room, his mouth speaking before he could stop it.

"Besides?" she asked, eyes wide. "Besides?"

He sat on the edge of the bed again, needing to sound her out just in case he thought he was going mad and he knew she could keep his secrets. "We arrested someone you, and Isobel, might know last night…or at least I think it's him…I'm sure I recognised him…..I think..."

"Tell me" she pleaded, seeing him frowning as she sat up closer and rubbed her hand in a soothing motion on his back, before reality struck her hard and fast in the face as she realised. "It wasn't Philip?" She knew he frequented the Albany from all the stories she heard and that would truly be the worst. All of a sudden her mouth dried and she swallowed carefully, wondering whether she wanted an answer from him this time.

Peter shook his head, vehemently, turning back to look her in the eye. "No….someone _else_ you both might know".


	7. Chapter 7

The hand in the small of her back should have been a comfort but not even the owner of that particular appendage could calm her down today.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Peter's question only just met her ears as they stood just inside the Station door where she had come to an abrupt halt after a silent car journey – even by Freddie's usual standards - from the Lodge back to Poplar. "Camilla?"

She swallowed quickly, watching but not truly hearing the hustle and bustle of the Police Station around her as people moved around; Peter's voice distant in her ears. "Sorry….yes, yes please if you can" Chummy stammered. "If they'll say you can". She smiled quickly and uncomfortably at him; the gesture lost in seconds.

"I'll speak to the Inspector. It's nothing to worry about Camilla". She felt him squeeze her elbow and he was just about to step forward when a constable arrived by their side.

"Sir" the officer said, nodding politely to his senior officer, even though he was in civvies, and then to Chummy, who was standing, hands clasped strangling her patent black bag and rooted to the floor.

"Constable…" Peter nodded to the younger officer.

"Hello Mrs Noakes" the Constable said, smiling at Chummy, even though he could well see that she was distracted. "It's nice to see you again".

"Hello Frank" she breathed eventually realising she was being talked to, eyes still wandering around the cold reception of the station as people wandered around her. She felt sick.

"Are you here for…..?" he asked, before his Sergeant cut him off.

"Yes" Peter replied for her, guiding her down the corridor as he wanted to get this over and done with as much as his wife. "Room six?"

"Yes Sir" the officer called after them both as he watched them walk away; having to raise his voice to be sure that he was heard. "The Inspector's already in there waiting for you Sir!"

Chummy smiled politely as Peter's Inspector sat in front of her, hands jammed to the side of her handbag again as it lay on her knee. Her knuckles were white.

"I must say it is lovely to see you again Mrs Noakes" the Inspector smiled, a bundle of papers underneath his arms as he leant on the table. "Did your husband tell you about the outing for my officer's wives and children next month?"

"He did" Chummy replied, desperately trying to feel as relaxed as the Inspector seemed to look. Peter had spoken to her about it a few weeks ago and persuaded her – and he did have to persuade her - to ask the Council if she could have the afternoon off. It wasn't really the time off; it was going out for the day with all the women that had made her apprehensive. "Can I assume that you and your son….?" The boy's name had escaped him.

"Freddie" she responded.

"Yes, young Freddie" the Inspector smiled, "he will be coming?"

"Yes, we will be coming. He's very much looking forward to it". Beside himself if she was honest at the very thought of going to the fairground and as it transpired the venue was not too far from the Lodge. The trip out though seemed to be many moons into the future.

"That's superb" the Inspector remarked taking a glance at Peter who was sitting next to his wife and deciding that they really should get to the point. His officer didn't look as nervous as his wife did. "Now I am sure you've been made aware as to why it has been suggested to me that you come into see us".

"Yes" Chummy replied, feeling the mood change in the room immediately. "My husband has spoken to me about it at length". They had spoken and 'at length' was indeed as very apt choice of words. Listening intently to his suspicions last night, she had digested every word; not wanting to believe a syllable that passed his lips. She knew her husband though; knew if he didn't think it was who he saw, he would never have told her. _Worried_ her as the case transpired to be.

 _"_ _I think it's him Camilla. I am almost sure it's him"._

Peter's words rattled around in her head; finally realising the Inspector was speaking again, with some very important instructions.

"When we do the identification parade, each of the individuals will be holding up a number" the Inspector continued. "Make no gestures or comment as you walk along the line and simply memorise the number of any person that you truly recognise. If you are not sure say so. Do not force yourself and try not to engage in eye contact". He saw Chummy nod, knowing his Sergeant had probably told her this already but it was worth emphasising, particularly as it had been quite the unexpected, yet fortuitous, course of events that had brought her here. "I do appreciate Mrs Noakes that it can be someone disconcerting to have to be asked to do something of this nature, particularly if you do recognise someone".

"Yes, yes" she replied, nodding far too quickly in anxiety. "One understands."

Thankfully from behind darkened glass, heart racing, wishing Peter was beside her holding her hand and not jammed up against the far wall, she perused the line from left to right and right to left. Her mind was racing, not wanting to see what she did – or indeed who she did – but to her horror it would seem that her husband had been spot on with his suspicions.

She took one last look, just to be entirely sure, and turned on her heels to Peter and the Inspector. Peter alone, from the crestfallen look on her face, knew what she was going to say. Now that he too was seeing him in the cold light of day, it had only affirmed what he already knew.

"Eight" she whispered when she return to the Inspector and her husband; hoping that line of men on the other side of the glass could not see her.

"Eight, Mrs Noakes?" the Inspector asked, taking out a notepad. "Are you entirely sure?"

"Yes absolutely" she replied, as her voice bobbled, seeing out of the corner of her eye the men being ordered out of the room; watching the forlorn figure she had identified shuffle away in a suit that looked as though he has slept in it.

"And what name do you know number eight by?" the Inspector asked, pen poised to write down her answer.

"Daniel Ferguson" Chummy replied, her voice betraying her as it crackled his name. Dear Daniel. A friend of too many years and one she had seen not to many years ago at Isobel's wedding, charming her mother and being an all-round good egg. So, so welcoming to Peter in this odd new world he was encountering; receiving him as though he was an old friend too. The son of the kind old gentleman that had leant Isobel his house for the wedding reception out of charity for her sorry state. A person now reduced to _this_ ; arrested in a brothel in the East End of London. She didn't understand.

The Inspector nodded several times. Peter knew full well what question was coming next, knowing more than he had let on to his wife last night. "And by no other name at all?" the Inspector asked again.

"No. Absolutely not" Chummy replied, shaking her head, trying not to look Peter in the eye otherwise she may feel tears.

The senior Officer nodded once this time and the pair were led back to the other room where they had first met. A cup of sweet tea was pushed towards her just five minutes later by a young constable. It had been intended to calm her nerves, but her stomach was turning itself in knots and she felt somewhat faint as the enormity of the situation began to wash over her.

"Mrs Noakes, do you _know_ of anyone called Philip Harbottle that might be connected to this Ferguson individual?" This time there was now another officer in the room besides the Inspector. She knew Sergeant Graves, taking notes as his Inspector talked, and this time Peter had hold of her hand underneath the table.

"Yes", she signed, seeing the Inspector suggest she carry on, thinking he too knew more than he was saying. "I do know a Philip Harbottle. He's married to a friend of mine, Isobel. I've known of him since I was about 13 or 14 I think".

"Are Daniel Ferguson and Philip Harbottle the same individual?" the other Sergeant asked, knowing the answer was 'no' but for the sake of record it needed asking.

Chummy shook her head, not knowing what trouble she may get either into. "No. They aren't."

Her time over, Chummy walked in silence again from the police station with Peter, somehow gravitating towards All Saint's Church as it was starting spit with rain. They decided to take shelter in the place they married and Peter let himself be led to the front pew and sat with his head bowed whilst she sank to her knees and closed her eyes. However many minutes later as he watched the rain patter against the high windows as it grew heavier by the second, she sat up next to him.

"One doesn't understand it Peter" she whispered. "Daniel is…he would never be involved in _anything_ criminal". She really truly wanted to believe that.

"He gave an alias to the Police Camilla" Peter replied, torn himself. "It's only by chance I walked in on his arrest. Anyone who gives an alias…."

"Yes I know. He has to be viewed with suspicion. I understand that" she responded.

"If I tell you something…." Peter started, thinking she needed to know to comprehend precisely why he had led her to the Police Station door and why the Inspector had become so very interested.

"I won't say a word" she replied suspiciously as she saw him take a breath, just looking behind himself for a moment to make absolutely sure they were on their own.

"He was found with cocaine on him. _Daniel_ was found with cocaine on him…"

Chummy nodded carefully as she digested the news; knowing what might be to come. "Enough to charge him with possession?" she asked. Did she want to hear the answer?

Peter smiled involuntarily. All these things she had learnt from his studies. "No", he sighed with a sad shake of the head. It was worse than that. "Not possession. With intent to supply. There was enough on him to make that charge stick and more besides" he responded.

"What might he get?"

Peter shrugged. "A few months". _If he doesn't pay off the beak._

"I don't understand why he gave Philip's name as his alias though" Chummy replied. "I know they were not the best of friends but …"

"I would've assumed that he would be released on bail, disappear back into the country and all the world would be looking for a Philip Harbottle not a Daniel Ferguson". He had no idea what might have happened in the long term.

Chummy still didn't understand it though, looking upwards towards the stained glass window that hung over the altar. "Do you think _he_ recognised _you_?"

"I don't honestly know" Peter replied. "I only saw him for a minute and the other lads said they couldn't interview him. They had to leave him to dry out in a cell overnight. Drunk they thought…or something else. They asked for Dr Turner to come".

"His parents will be _heartbroken_ …" she replied, despondent. It might just even finish them off to find a son arrested with a whore in one of the most unsavoury establishments that London ever owned. "His brother too."

She took one last look at the stained glass window, needing solace that this time she had not found in this place. "We told Isobel and Mrs Morton we wouldn't be away long and we need to get Fred from Violet before he runs rings around her".

Peter nodded and stood up; holding out a hand for her to take.

He had no idea what to say.


	8. Chapter 8

"Tea?" Chummy asked, looking back to the figure that was walking behind her, laden with bags and paperwork the latter of which she knew was heading in her direction in the non too distant future.

"Would it be an imposition to ask for coffee?" he asked meekly, in need of a strong drink, but a non-alcoholic one would have to suffice for now.

Chummy smiled, and looked over the Doctor who was now propped against the kitchen worktop as she took the kettle from the stove. He did look awfully tired and rather a little windswept and damp from the walk up the drive in the tipping down rain.

"Coffee it is" she smiled, filling up the kettle. "Although one would suggest though that you sit down before you fall down".

Patrick laughed briefly and smiled back seeing her nod towards the table. It had been long week and, even though it was work, he always enjoyed the drive up to the Lodge for his fortnightly visits, breathing in the fresh air and the peace and quiet the countryside brought him away from the sights, sounds and smells of Poplar. "So how is everything going?" he asked as he sat. They had found really quite an easy way of working with his responsibilities and her occasional need for advice and his faith in her - that she could take on this role and do it well - had only grown as each visit passed over.

"Rather undisturbed at the moment" Chummy replied thoughtfully, pulling two mugs down from the shelf and the chocolate biscuits she had to hide from her son. "Connie went into labour last night, or so we thought but it all rather tailed off about three o'clock this morning. I am just keeping an eye on her today and see how she goes. If she becomes established today, I will be down to three residents with no sign of any newcomers quite yet". To be truthful, she might be glad of the peace.

"I could offer a once over?" Patrick suggested. She'd probably already examined the girl many a time over, but fresh eyes always helped he had found.

"Would you?" she asked.

"Consider it done" Patrick replied with a smile, swiftly followed by a yawn that he tried and failed to suppress. He'd probably had about five hours sleep in the last two days and he couldn't see it coming to an end any time soon.

"Difficulties?" Chummy asked, pushing a blue china plate packed with biscuits in front of him; one of which he immediately took up.

"A puzzling case…." he began, seeing a cat wind its body around the half open kitchen door, sauntering across the floor and jumping up on one of the chairs opposite him. Distracted for a second, Patrick had to ask. "Is he meant to be in here?"

"She" Chummy clarified. "Yes, Whiskey she is. One is afraid one was the victim of a devious plot between my husband and my son, so yes, we have a pet". The animal examined this new face closely and decided that, for now, his presence in her new home would be tolerated for the time being at least and she settled down curled up on the chair.

"Anything another opinion might help with?" Chummy asked, referring to his 'puzzling case' and seeing a frown form on his forehead. "In absolute confidentiality" Chummy assured him as he sat back in the chair considering her offer. No harm, he thought. Patrick knew he could trust her.

"Just someone I had to examine at the Police Station the other day" He hadn't seen Peter that morning so had no information to be joining the dots. "Picked up from somewhere in a very sorry state it seemed. Incoherent with alcohol and I am quite sure something else. In a Savile Row suit complaining whoever had arrested him had taken off his Indian silk tie, rather roughly searched him, and confiscated his Rolex! Not the average person I examine in a Police Station in Poplar". He paused to take another bite of biscuit. "It puzzled me why he was there…."

He looked across having been met with silence and examined the nurse curiously. "I take it you already know something about this already?"

Chummy thought for a second; wondering if she should say anything but decided - particularly that he was one of the few, apart from Sister Julienne, who had shown early faith in her - that she would trust him too. "He's a friend of mine" she said sadly.

"Oh?"

"Daniel Ferguson" she continued. "He was found with cocaine on him and enough to charge him with supply. One imagines some may have found itself into his blood stream" she said, steam rising from the kettle.

Patrick nodded. "That explains an awful lot".

Chummy breathed heavily, filling up both cups. "I've known him since we were children. I don't understand how he has ended up like this but it seems he has lied to the Police and found himself caught up in all manner of charges". She put the kettle back on the stove. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Not particularly" Patrick replied, recalling the events really rather vividly if only for the absolute indignation regarding the location of his watch! "He wasn't particularly sober. Just about lucid enough to consent for me to take blood if I remember rightly. The officer I spoke to - Irish chap - wasn't for mollycoddling him one iota. Told exactly how he could keep him in a cell for as long as he wanted to".

"I don't know what to do about it". She really didn't. Caught up by accident. If Peter had been off duty that night, he may never had known. Run upstairs instead of across the corridor to help two other officers, he may never have known, but, he did and they were to deal with the consequences it would seem.

"I would suggest that you let the police do their job" Patrick responded, weighing it up in his own mind as to how he might respond if he were in the Nurse's shoes too and, contrary to that, what he thought was the correct course of action. "If he was - is - up his neck in no good; I don't imagine you would wish to be dragged down with him. Your husband might also think that way too".

"He is a _friend_ ", Chummy insisted bringing him his cup of coffee and sitting down. Friends had been hard to come by over the years but Daniel, and his brother Harry, had always been faces she wished to see come what may. Isobel too.

"Friendship can only be pushed to so many lengths Nurse" Patrick replied wisely, wrapping his palms around the mug of coffee. "Sometimes you see people dig themselves so far into the mire that whatever you do, how good a friend you may personally be, you cannot save them from their own downfall".

Chummy considered his words thoughtfully for most of the day as she went about the business of the Lodge. Peter had already told her Daniel was to be released on bail but she really wondered what would happen next. Two problems at her door now and neither of which she knew an easy way to solve.

Her day had been typically slower than normal, allowing her to ruminate somewhat unnecessarily. Finally established in labour, Connie had been shipped off to the Hospital just after lunch, Freddie was thoroughly engaged with his toys on the rug in her office – his current choice of place to play - and the cat was tapping a pen lid against the skirting board as she sat wading through yet more pieces of paper. And Isobel? Well Chummy really wasn't quite sure where her friend had gone to be frank. A nice day for a walk she had said. Just up to the village in the early afternoon sun she had said and, engrossed, Chummy had lost track of time, not realising just how long she had been gone.

Horror spilled through her veins like poison when she looked up from her desk and saw the clock on the mantelpiece above the unstoked fire. "Half past six?!" she said out loud, hearing in the background a car scrape up the drive. "Oh all bally blasted Hell!"

"Bally blasted Hell! Hell!" Freddie repeated smiling at her as she stood up and walked towards him, picking him up off the floor. Isobel had been gone for hours to God knows where in a place she didn't know, supper needing doing and now she had taught her son to swear.

"No Fred" she scolded, an edge of despair in her voice. "Mumma shouldn't have said words like that and Daddy won't like it if you say words like that either". She was sure the tyres on the drive had been Peter arriving home; precisely on the dot as usual, however as soon as she was about to open the door to her office, the telephone rang so she turned tail to answer it. He had a key to get in anyway.

"Aston Lodge, Sister Noakes speaking" she said as Freddie tried to grab the telephone receiver off her. He'd taken to hearing the telephone ring and running to 'answer it', except not saying a word other than 'hello' and leave the caller lingering until someone ran up to answer properly.

 _"_ _What-ho Sister Noakes"._

"Peter…" she smiled, tense shoulders immediately relaxing. He mustn't be in earshot of anyone important to greet her that way.

"I'm going to be late" he began quickly. "The Inspector called another briefing over the you know what the other night about an hour ago and we've only just finished".

"Oh…" Chummy replied, wondering if he may follow that statement up with another piece of news that may very well fail to calm her agitated nerves. He didn't though and now she wondered, in her ever wandering mind, if he was saving it for the privacy of their attic lodgings

"I'm just leaving now" Peter responded, hearing Freddie chattering away over nothing in the background as they walked. "I should be back in about an hour all being well".

"We'll be here" she smiled as she almost heard his smile.

"I love you two". Now she knew there was no-one within a mile of him as he would never have said that otherwise.

"We love you too" she responded. "Please drive safely".

"I will".

Chummy put the telephone down; only to be greeted with a flash of light as the car she had heard outside turned around, the gravel on the drive crunching under its wheels so loud against darkening evening. With Fred still installed on her hip, she walked behind her desk and moved the heavy red velvet curtains that had been pulled across the front window an inch so she could see what was going on, yet not be entirely seen herself shrouded amongst the nets. She hoped.

So who on earth was it that was sitting in the car on the drive? She waiting a moment, feeling Fred rest his head on her shoulder, her heart banging against her ribs. She didn't recognise the car and for the first time in a long time she felt rather unsafe to be alone in this rambling house with no husband to answer the door or indeed, in those times she needed it, to take control.

Ever so quickly she saw the driver's side door open and she felt her pulse rise even more. The figure rested his eyes on the door way to the Lodge, looking up and down the facade of the vast building, Chummy squinting into the evening light to determine who her visitor was. Her attention was taken to the passenger door for a moment as someone else stepped out.

What she did see in the next few moments, she didn't like one bit.


	9. Chapter 9

Chummy waited carefully by the window for a minute or two more. Blinking quickly, she heard the front door bell go and almost simultaneously saw the male figure go back to the car with a brief wave.

Snapping herself back to sense, Chummy stepped away from the window to the door of her office; only to hear voices on the other side of the wall. Theresa it would seem had answered the door and was passing the time of day with someone that Chummy was really quite unsure that she wanted to see at that very moment. In the distance she heard the car engine fire and ultimately fade into the distance; a problem now temporarily out of sight yet not mind.

The Sister bit her lip and, still with Freddie resting on her shoulder, she stepped out into the hallway, a tight smile adorning her face as she noted the two figures in front of her.

"I'm so desperately sorry!" Isobel announced suddenly whipping off her hat and coat to the warmth of the Lodge. "One appreciates that you may have been rather worried about me. I've been gone for hours on end!"

"You have" Chummy responded, almost choking on the words as they were forced from her throat. Neither woman saw the wary look on Theresa's face as she glanced between the Sister and her visitor and back again, sensing from the Sister's straight-backed demeanour that all was certainly not well. The young girl decided rather too quickly that she might just go and help Diane set the tables for supper and departed without another word.

"One is rather afraid I lost track of time!" Isobel smiled, taking hold of Freddie's hand and shaking it in affection. Her voice was effusive, light and she had a pink glow on her cheeks from the chill evening air. "There are so many divine little shops in the village and that little café on the corner by the green is so heavenly! One almost had to be thrown out when she closed up shop!"

Chummy nodded again. "Supper isn't started yet. One rather lost track of time too….." Isobel entirely missed how flat, and perhaps how slightly suspicious, her voice sounded.

"Oh!" she replied, waving her hand to dismiss any concern. "Not to worry about me! Must go and freshen up…." With that Isobel was up the stairs in a flash before Chummy could say any more and she was abandoned in the hallway.

Peter sunk into the bath, holding his breath and disappearing under the water line, the noises in the attics muffled as with closed eyes he relaxed in the warmth. The washing machine rattled next door and with Freddie now tucked up in bed, he had a moment by himself; that was until he heard his wife speak from somewhere above his head. Peter pulled himself up from under the water, hearing it rush away. "What was that?"

"I said" Chummy replied, a clean bath towel over her arm for him. "One does wish you wouldn't do that. You know it unnerves me Peter".

He wiped his hand across his face, and watched her drape the towel over the warm radiator and walk away with a tenuous smile and without another word. He sighed heavily. Something was up.

Some while later, when he was assured that Freddie was asleep at least for most of the night; he found her sitting at the small desk she used for writing letters. She was indeed poring over something. "So are you going to tell me what is wrong?" Peter asked, standing behind her, resting a palm on the back of her neck. How tense she felt…..

For a second his wife didn't respond and he pressed his thumbs into the tight muscles. She shook her head slightly; as though she was returning from a trance and Peter saw her put her pen down; briefly seeing a letter to her sister in law half written on the oak in front of her. "Is the baby asleep?" she asked.

"Well away" Peter replied. He couldn't see she had closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the warmth of his hands as they worked away at her shoulders. "Tell me what it is…."

She sighed loudly, tipping her head to one side. "Isobel spent most of the afternoon out of the Lodge…"

"And?"

"She came back about an hour before you…." Chummy continued, "and….I am sure she lied to me about where she had been".

"I don't follow" Peter responded with a frown.

"She said she had been up in the village. In Mrs O'Brien's café all afternoon…" Chummy recounted, knowing immediately of her friend's duplicity.

"It's Wednesday" Peter replied matter of factly. "She closes half day on a Wednesday. Without fail."

"I know" Chummy sighed, shifting her shoulders about as she stretched her neck. "She only went out at two at the earliest and…..and she was delivered back here in a….." Chummy was about to describe the Rolls Royce she saw on the drive but realised she needed to be more specific. "She came back with _Daniel_ ".

Peter's hands stilled in shock. "As in Ferguson?" He saw her nod. "Did he come into the Lodge?"

"No" she replied, very determinedly shaking her head, not sure whether she would have turned him away from the door or not if had he tried.

"Good" Peter responded, happy he hadn't sent foot anywhere near his wife; particularly with all he knew. Things that Camilla hadn't been party too quite yet either. "Was it definitely him?"

"Yes" Chummy replied. "I recognised the car at first – it's his brothers – and he got out too to walk her to the door. She was full of beans…positively bouncing around the hall, in fact".

"And she said nothing about him?" Peter responded, going to back to massaging her shoulders.

"No" she said, turning in her seat to face him, causing his hands to slip away again as her brown eyes stared up wide towards him. "It could be innocent". She wanted to believe it was innocent more than anything in the world.

"Camilla, we are over an hours' drive out of London" Peter replied. "You said yourself she's told no-one where she went to. It's not some kind of co-incidence in anyone's wildest dreams that they could have just bumped into each other in the village or anything like that".

She nodded slowly accepting - as she had no choice in it - and really not sure what he was doing as she watched him walk over to the telephone, hearing the dial creak and him press the receiver to his ear. A thought had struck.

Peter waited patiently for the telephone to be answered, an idea forming in his head at this not so coincidental event and how they could find out what was going on. He heard a familiar voice answer the telephone _._

 _"Exchange….what number do you require?"_

"Hello Lily" Peter replied, seeing his wife walk over and stand by his shoulder, listening in to his conversation as he tipped the receiver so they could both hear.

 _"_ _Oh! Hello Sergeant! What can I do for you?"_

"A favour" Peter replied, stealing a glance to his wife. "Did anyone but Sister Noakes make a telephone call from the Lodge in the last day or so?"

He could hear shuffling of paper _. "Yes. I transferred a very well spoken woman to a Norfolk number. Hockham 783. Twice. Once yesterday and once today. This morning about half past nine"._

"That's Daniel's parents" Chummy whispered the moment he put the telephone down. A thousand scenarios were running through Chummy's mind. Had she mentioned Daniel's arrest to Isobel? Had it slipped out? It was vaguely possible she could have done and Isobel was purely looking out for the welfare of a friend. "It may be innocent".

"You said that before" Peter responded. "And it could be". In reality it would almost inevitably turn out far from that he felt.

Chummy walked away to sit on the settee, where he joined her a moment later. "But equally, it may not be", Chummy swallowed. "One knows one shouldn't be suspicious of a friend, but if Isobel _didn't_ know about his arrest why not bring him in here? One doesn't believe that she wouldn't think I might like to say hello. He's never seen Freddie".

"He may have felt uncomfortable knowing you were here. Perhaps in case he saw me". It was a logical stance to take. Arrested in Poplar; friend married to a Poplar policeman? He may not have wanted to take the risk. "I can't say I'd fancy it or for that matter have to confess to being picked up in one of the seediest brothels in the East End. It's bad enough I have to go in there to work…."

"In one sense of the word Peter", she smiled, taking up his hand with a squeeze, the mood lightening for a second as he realised his words could have two meanings. She breathed out quickly. "I'm going to speak to her".

"You are?" Peter would only admit privately to himself that he was surprised. He didn't want that Ferguson chap around her, the Lodge or Freddie when it came to it. No matter how much of a friend he professed to be to his wife.

"Yes" Chummy replied. "She might not know, but _I_ know…"

Her own words rang in her ears as she walked downstairs and rapped on Isobel's door, slipping inside at the cheery 'What-ho!' she heard from the other side. Chummy smiled awkwardly as she found Isobel seated painting her nails. A small pot of scarlet red polish stood on the windowsill.

"You know you must let me paint yours" Isobel remarked, twirling her drying fingernails in the air.

"Peter doesn't like red nail polish" Chummy replied harshly, sitting down on the end of the bed. "Besides it would be chipped off in five minutes in here so one never bothers anyway". She was lucky to have them filed neatly never mind anything else.

Isobel smiled again and went back to the finishing touches on her nails as Chummy sat, staring at her own hands for a second. She had to do it. "I remember when we met up before the wedding" she began. "You said we always told the truth to each other when we were younger".

Isobel looked up with a nervous expression on her face, utterly transformed from the cheery smiles there had been moments earlier. "We did" she just about managed to utter, twisting the top back carefully on the bottle of polish and wondering where this conversation was going.

"Why did Daniel Ferguson drop of you off at the Lodge today?" Chummy asked, sitting up straight in an effort to at least appear that she had some confidence behind her convictions.

"It wasn't…" Isobel began, going to say words that would almost certainly come back to betray her. She was her friend. She owed her the truth. "I telephoned the Hall yesterday to speak to Daniel's mother. I wanted to see if she would accommodate me for a few days…I know I am imposing on you".

"You are not. Not at all".

"It was rather brazen of me to turn up without a word and expect you to take me in. She told me he was in London for a few days. On business she said, but to telephone back today as she was expecting him home. I did that and he came down here to meet me. We went for a drive around the countryside….." It was perhaps eighty-percent of the truth, but the actuality of the matter was one she was not entirely sure her friend would understand nor indeed that she had the strength to bear the consequences of quite yet.

"Did he tell you he had been arrested in London?" Chummy asked, eyebrows raised.

She nodded. "He told me all about it."

"And where?"

"And where" Isobel replied sadly. It was not perhaps _where_ he had been but _how_ he had been found out. "He said nothing happened between him and the girl". In fact, his words describing this 'creature' had been somewhat harsh.

Chummy thought it a rather odd statement; particularly how Peter had described him being found in a state of undress. She reached across and turned Isobel's arm over running a fingertip over the fading bruises deciding that, whilst they were talking the truth, that it seemed to be now or never. "Did you have a fall? From the stories Peter tells me, women often go the station telling the police they had a fall or they walked into a door, when something else much more sinister has happened". She paused for a moment. "We never had any secrets at school did we?"

Isobel shook her head and withdrew her arm, pulling her sleeve down longer than it would go, smudging her brand new nails in the process.

"We aren't at school any more..."


	10. Chapter 10

Chummy took a quick breath. "No, we _certainly_ are not in school any more. All of that is a long, long time ago". Better best forgotten as the case may be.

"One always wished that we were somehow better prepared for what the future may throw at us…" Isobel began, thinking back at how different life was then when all the cares in the world they had were so simply solved. "We all thought the world was ponies, ballgowns and one day a line of sweet children brought up by the Nanny and a pretty cottage in the country…." She sighed and folding her arms protectively across herself, damp nail polish forgotten. "Well, I certainly did for starters" she concluded looking up briefly at her friend.

"It's far from that…" Chummy replied with an ironic laugh. Those sentiments she too had once shared - well perhaps just the ponies and ballgowns - but it was true that all those years ago she saw the world with such closeted eyes and no-one taught her otherwise. Reality, even so far removed from what she read in the Church Times as she began to open up her eyes to the world, was a shock to the system. "We _were_ so unprepared for real life" she said. "No-one taught us how to communicate with people outside our circle or how the world might view the privileged existence we grew up in. I learned more than one could ever imagine the moment I ended up at St Thomas'. About me, about life…..Even more in Poplar". How true was that?

"All we were taught was that men were beastly creatures with abominable habits and in order to achieve anything in this world we had to marry them" Chummy concluded. "We had to marry them to be worth something".

"..and yet when we do", Isobel replied thoughtfully, "we become mute.. I do wish I had a little one to amuse me; to talk to" she continued, considering the words she had just heard carefully, not seeing Chummy bristle slightly.

"Babies aren't there to provide entertainment to you Belle or be a distraction", Chummy replied. "Not when they are being sick in the night or screaming their hearts out because they have a tooth coming through. They aren't playthings". She would never dream of passing her Freddie off to a Nanny like she had been and it was always Peter or her that tucked him up in bed. One or the other, come what may; they both made sure of that.

"But if I did have a little one, I might have some purpose to my life" Isobel insisted. "One does appreciate that they are their own little people but if I did have a child to play with or perhaps to take to the park one might not let one's mind wander so much…."

Chummy bit back what she was about to say as it was harsh. _You really have no idea, do you?_ "Freddie can be a little devil at times" she started, "but even all the tears and the tantrums when he smiles at me when he wakes up just because I'm the first thing he sees, or when I see him and Peter….when they have their little conversations…. I love him more than I thought I could love anyone. And Peter too".

"You see that's where you and I differ" Isobel responded, looking up and seeing the pleading expression on her friend's face. She rubbed one eye. Smudged mascara to go with smudged nail varnish. "I honestly think Philip tries his best with me, but one gets so bored with lunches and hair dressing appointments that….that sometimes I feel my frustrations spill over and he has no choice".

"I don't understand" Chummy whispered, dreading the place her mind had wandered to.

"He has no choice but to quieten me", Isobel responded, the flash of angry eyes and venomous mouth still all too prevalent in her mind. She had tried to justify it; that she forced him into those words so it _must_ be her fault. It was almost safer that way with the enormity of what may happen if she fought back.

" _Quieten_ you?" Chummy asked slowly, fear firmly coursing through her veins.

Isobel didn't answer the question. She _chose not_ to answer the question. "Lately the house has become so tedious and I have found myself seeking amusement elsewhere. With no prospect of a child from my husband that one…" Embarrassment fluttered across her face at the words she was about to utter. "Our relations are sporadic and I might add driven by him….and when one finds things out about one's husband's affairs…"

"Affairs in the biblical sense?" Chummy questioned, interrupting her.

"Financial affairs" Isobel clarified, until other words came tumbling from her mouth as needed to feel the weight on her shoulders lift, even for a handful of seconds as the fear balled tightly in her middle. "Oh Chummy…. I know he goes to those places in the East End. He tells me often enough! Positively tortures me with it!" she exclaimed, determined not to cry or perversely, feel jealous of those girls that had her husband's attention. _His attention was meant to be with me_. "He says those girls 'service his needs' better than I do. He doesn't have affairs with pretty little things hanging off his arm, no. He prefers whores to his wife". She sounded almost casual at the end. As though she was so used to it now that whoever knew, well, it didn't really matter.

Chummy, however, didn't know what to say. She had heard all sorts of whispers from years ago; accidentally seen him in the East End long before the marriage as he frequented one of those places so it should never have been a surprise. Trouble was, now faced with the truth as it was laid before her; she had little idea how to soothe this wound.

"He says that when he goes with them" Isobel carried on, needing to talk, "he at least has a woman who _pretends_ she wants to be in his bed…..But if he did not speak to me in such a manner that he does, one might feel more enthusiasm…The very thing is though…." Isobel stopped herself abruptly. She could have as many jewels and dresses as she liked, but she might just love somebody to talk to.

"Go on…." Chummy responded warily, clasping her hands together tightly in anxiety, hoping her face was not betraying her.

"How do you control your feelings? How do you control your….your….desires towards a man?" Isobel asked, stuttering as she forced the words from her lips.

Chummy was lost again and shook her head; confused. Swinging from one minute to telling her how little they seemed to interact, as it where, to asking questions about the deepest intimacies between man and woman. "Well if you are talking about Peter, I've never had to and I don't want to. There hasn't been anyone else to talk _about"_. All of sudden a light flicked on in the Sister's head when she realised what or in fact, who, Isobel was talking about. "You don't mean Philip when you say 'a man' do you….?"

"Daniel" she replied flatly and far too quickly. If she paused, she may not say his name at all.

The Sister's heart dropped. She couldn't believe what her ears were hearing. "You and Daniel are….?!"

"For several months" Isobel confessed. "Philip knows; or _rather_ he asked me if what he heard was true". She could still feel the panic at the confrontation over breakfast. "I feel his frustration, but no-one frowns on a man who has an acquaintance outside his marriage. For a woman they do, so I denied it. It has not… _absolutely not_ …extended to intimate matters, but I do rather feel it will in time. Daniel he….he has told me time and time again that he loves me".

Chummy reached across and took Isobel's wrist. "Did Philip do that when he found out? When he suspected you?"

Isobel shook her head, freely pulling her sleeve back up, the heaviness lifting and feeling her fears temporarily drift away. "One does know what it looks like and could be easily misconstrued and one imagines anyone who would see it would rightly form a conclusion, but I _fell_. I was out walking with Daniel and I fell over a tree root. He grabbed my arm to stop me falling properly. That's where the bruises came from. You have to believe me. I am telling the truth". This time she was telling the truth. How she would explain ripped stockings or mud on her skirt she would never know if he hadn't caught her. Chummy had not seen the bruises on her back where, however, marks lay that had fallen from the hands of her friend's husband. That time he had shoved her or the mark on the top of her thigh that hurt so very much when she sat a certain way.

"I believe you", Chummy responded.

"I had to hide it from Philip and mother" Isobel replied. "Then when…"

"When?"

Isobel took a deep breath, wanting to offload what had been haunting her mind and perhaps her real, final straw, reason for fleeing London to find space and solace. "A fortnight ago I received a letter. It told me that my husband and Daniel and some other person called Edward somebody were involved in a complicated arrangement with a chap called George Bolton. In somewhere called Shadwell. That they needed to be careful and that I needed to be careful of what they were doing".

The premise of an unsupportive husband seemed an easy place to hide and with all that was falling on top of her, Isobel had no choice but to run. These bruises in all those places that would stay hidden were her fault for provoking him with her words and deeds after all. He must never find out she had been on this excursion. It was punishment for not being the wife he wanted; for betraying him.

"Did you report it to the Police?" Chummy asked.

Isobel shook her head. "I told Philip because he was my husband and he was named in the letter. He ripped it up and laughed about it. I remember his laughter – braying it was as though he was untouchable". Chummy heard her breath out sharply. "I received another just before I left to come here. It told me exactly the same thing. Almost word for word except it was almost taunting me. It mentioned drugs and it mentioned Daniel too". Isobel looked up again. It was as though the person who wrote this letter knew of their mutual acquaintance, to put it mildly. "I _did_ want to speak to his mother about staying at the Hall, genuinely I did, but I also wanted to make sure he was safe. I should have asked you if I could use the telephone".

The last thing Chummy was concerned about was the telephone bill.

"I ran to you because you were my only safe place. Not Mother, not Daniel, not Philip. Mother would tell me to be quiet for the sake of appearances and we couldn't afford a divorce, Daniel would tell me to leave and go off with him and Philip…." She didn't know what her husband would do; she knew him that ill. "When I got to Nonnatus and then to the Police Station. I just couldn't do it. I didn't want anything to happen to Philip, even if he and I are not on the best of terms, nor Daniel… Despite the state of my relationships I do not wish to see anyone in trouble".

"Did you keep the letter this time?" Chummy asked, thinking it far too late to worry about 'trouble'.

Isobel nodded. "It's in my suitcase".

"I think we need to take some advice from someone who knows…" Chummy announced standing up and holding out a hand to her friend. "Come on. Upstairs".


	11. Chapter 11

**_With apologies for the excruciatingly slow update...:)_**

Peter squinted for a moment thinking her request through, staring at one of Freddie's toys that was lingering on the carpet as his mind processed the information he had learned and equally, considering what she ought to know.

"Tell me please" Chummy implored him as she stood over him. "I'll understand better as at the moment after _that_ , one has no idea what on earth one has to do". She sat down next to him with a thump utterly confused and desperately needing him to provide clarity. It was more than clear he knew more about this than he currently seemed to care to mention and she was determined to find out.

She had brought Isobel upstairs, the letter in hand and presented it to her husband. She saw his shoulders tightening as he read through each word and now, with Isobel back to her bedroom, they were alone to discuss the events of this last half an hour and discuss it they needed to do.

Peter knew she had to know it all this time and decided that he would have to dive in as this was far too close to home now. She had to know to protect herself and her friend.

"George Bolton" he began, carefully enunciating the syllables. "He was the one we were after the other night. Except according to one of the girls - Ginny - she's his favourite girl that he always goes to - we missed him by about ten or fifteen minutes. We've had people there but he just changed his time to visit", he said, watching her nod. 'Visiting' wasn't quite the right terminology but it had to do. "The raid was set up deliberately to get him and him alone. Anyone else happened to be a bonus" he concluded.

"What did he do?" Chummy asked tentatively. Peter almost didn't know where to start with that particular question and whilst he had told her story and after story all these years as it helped to get things off his chest, he knew he could not sanitise this one.

"There are three forces looking for him" he said, clasping his hands together. "Hampshire….Gloucestershire and us. This Bolton chap started off as a petty criminal – shoplifting, pick pocketing, nothing earth-shattering. A few months in prison here there and everywhere. Then as far as we know about two years ago came into the company of people with far more money than him no matter what he pinched and well…..there was a mutual arrangement to the benefit of a number where Bolton would supply drugs. He is a courier. I have no idea how Isobel's husband or Daniel are tied up in it. Except they are and Bolton…" He took a breath. "He is dangerous".

"How dangerous?" Chummy asked carefully. She wasn't soft enough to realise that the East End had its underbelly but she did not expect it to touch her privileged friends.

"Hampshire want him for an assault that left a fifteen year old lad with brain damage and Gloucestershire for a robbery where a woman was pistol whipped. There may be more" he concluded with a loud sigh. "Probably will be more. Potentially country-wide".

"Oh my lord!" Chummy exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth as her heart raced, it slowly sinking in just how much trouble her friend could be in. She felt quite sick with it all, wondering what was running through Isobel's mind and indeed how frightened she may be.

"I think I need to take Isobel and that letter down to the Station tomorrow…" Peter continued before he turned to face his wife properly. " _And_ she is to go home after that. I don't want her here if she has some association with someone like that, even second or third hand…."

"But someone knows where she lives; to write that letter" Chummy responded. "If Philip is tied up in it all, they know where he lives too. She might be in danger if she goes home". Suddenly her friend's matrimonial problems seemed to pale into insignificance. "At least if she's here she's out of the way…."

Peter paused before he said anything else. Protective instincts for the safely of his wife and son aside, she actually had a point. Someone had written directly to her about her husband's associations so what would stop them turning up on her doorstep? "Alright but she still comes to the station with me tomorrow. She has no choice in the matter and subject to what she says, I'll decide if she stays or we make arrangements for her to go somewhere else." They had plenty of safe houses but somehow Peter really didn't think the refined Isobel would take to those two up two downs in Barking.

So the pair went, packed off in the car and with Freddie standing once again at the tall office window, Chummy was sure their young son must have felt the atmosphere. He had been oddly quiet all day; his mother wondering if he was coming down with something but without him running around like a lunatic, Chummy had had a rather productive day. If she was being honest with herself, she was also trying to keep as busy as she could to stop her mind wandering as to what was going on in Poplar. She daren't telephone the station to speak to Peter. She knew full well the Inspector frowned on personal telephone calls unless it was an emergency so she had to stop her hands wandering to the receiver and dialling that familiar number far too many times. She had even refrained when she knew he was on his breaks.

So, in an attempt to occupy herself, the girls records were now entirely up to date and Chummy was sitting at her desk writing (with a weight in her chest) yet another begging letter to the Council. She glanced at the small brass clock on her desk and pressed her lips together as for a minute she watched the hands.

"Five past four" she sighed, putting her pen down and leaning back in her chair, hearing it creak under the strain. Peter was on days this week so he would be home in a couple of hours and hopefully, maybe, no definitely hopefully, with Isobel in tow.

"Mumma?" a curious voice came from behind her. Freddie, for some reason, had decided he wanted to sit and watch the world go by from a space on the floor behind her. He was between the glass and the net curtains, having crawled under there to sit. Chummy did wonder what he was looking at but he was quiet so she didn't complain.

"Yes handsome?" she asked, slightly distracted deciding to go back to the paperwork in front of her and finish this blasted letter.

"Man" Freddie replied, a finger pressed against the glass as he strained to look.

"Man?" Chummy responded absently, scrawling _'Sister Camilla Noakes'_ across the bottom.

"Man" Freddie repeated, still looking sideways. "At door".

Chummy turned in her seat and, just about able to see the front door from the floor to ceiling window, she pushed the nets aside and off from where they had landed on her son's head as he settled underneath some time ago. There was indeed someone standing there in the closing in evening fiddling with the inside pocket of his coat. Whoever it was had his back slightly to her so she couldn't really tell who it was. It certainly wasn't Peter fiddling for his keys.

"It is a man" Chummy responded curiously to her son. "But Mumma isn't expecting any visitors tonight. Only Daddy".

She saw the man straighten his camel coat with a sharp tug, hoping he had not seen the curtains move or the little boy watching the world go by. Hoping too he wouldn't turn around and see the pair staring at him. Chummy would have to admit that she was slightly unnerved at the appearance of this person uninvited. Perhaps he was just delivering something or needed directions, but no matter how much she tried to second guess, she saw him step forward and raise his hand to the door. She noticed he was wearing leather gloves and they looked expensive.

The moment the bell rang, Freddie was up and off and faster than a speeding bullet had made it to the front door before Chummy had a moment to think. She was going to have put a stop to him running off and answering the door all the time. It was bad enough that he would answer the telephone, but at least now he was saying 'Aston Lodge' rather than that deathly silence that he used to do; not even a 'hello'.

This time, with the Lodge door unlocked for Peter, Freddie had managed to open it and was looking up at their visitor. The visitor was rather befuddled at finding a miniature blonde haired butler open the door and hesitated before speaking.

"One is so sorry!" Chummy said, rushing towards them both across the hallway. "He slips away and has a fascination with opening the…." She looked up and her heart dropped. "Door", she finished.

The man tipped his hat, taking it off and smiled. She hadn't changed one iota. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" he replied, feeling somewhat anxious himself at having to make this journey in these circumstances. "Such a while, you'd agree?…."

Chummy felt Freddie take hold of the skirts of her uniform before she realised and picked him up, installing him on her hip. "It has" she replied, voice tight. "Been a while. It certainly has".

"I won't use the word friend" he continued. "But would you invite an old acquaintance in?"


	12. Chapter 12

She realised she had no choice, so with a quick nod of the head and a prayer that none of the girls were hanging over the bannister as usual, she invited him in. All she needed was news of a male evening visitor to catch like wildfire so he was ushered into her office. _Particularly this one._

Fred was still perched on her hip as she walked to her own chair, gesturing for him to sit down. A very brief glance at the clock told her that she wouldn't have much time on her hands before Peter, or indeed Isobel, came back so she needed to get this over and done with as soon as. How she wished she could just ignore the door some days. Chummy sat, bolt upright and with Fred now deciding he wanted to slump back onto her chest, she left him be. She could tell her son was giving this visitor the evil eye and, even though it was entirely uncharitable, she was inclined entirely to agree with him.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he started, taking off a pair of black leather driving gloves. "Such a while, you'd agree….?"

"You said that before Philip" Chummy responded sharply. She really didn't need to entertain her friend's husband on her doorstep, not tonight, nor any night and particularly not with what she knew.

Philip cleared his throat, realizing he was on a sticky wicket already. "One won't take up much of your time. I believe my wife is here".

Chummy hesitated; wondering if he was playing games, taking chances that she was here and bluffing with her to make her reveal all. "What makes you say that?" she asked, hoping her face would not betray her.

"Chummy, I know she is here", he responded. "Mary, that loose mouthed housekeeper. She told me Issy had gone off to the seaside for a few days, but…." He paused. "Whenever I tended to propose a trip to the seaside, she always came with me but with a face like a wet weekend so my suspicions were aroused. I never knew she had been writing to you all this time. The housekeeper had been fishing your letters out of the post for months for my wife before I saw it. God knows why. One doesn't object to Issy having friends. So, I put two and two together and for once in my miserable life concluded that they added up to four".

The Sister nodded. He certainly knew Isobel was here. She could see something on his face that she had never seen before and for a moment she actually felt a scrap of sympathy for him. It only lasted a brief second though.

"Philip, your marriage is your marriage. Belle came here because she needed someone to listen to her. She hasn't left you", Chummy replied.

"But she's damn bloody close to it….am I right?" Philip responded, failing to keep his voice at a level that was respectable.

"Don't use expletives in front of my son" Chummy replied sharply putting her hand over Fred's ear.

"Sorry" Philip replied, needing to vent his frustrations on someone although he had never intended it to be Chummy. He held both hands up. "Apologies to you young man". In truth, until that second, he had simply not connected the blonde haired boy back to Chummy and assumed he was a resident. Freddie just kept looking out of the corner of his eye, endlessly chewing one of his mother's cardigan buttons.

"I realized long ago that I never really knew her" Philip continued. " I know all of Daniel Ferguson and his illicit liaisons with my wife. I know she will tell you I cannot control my temper around her…" Chummy was about to say something when he raised his palm to stop her. "She…..she does things, says things that tick me off. I cannot talk to her as I believe a husband should be able to talk to their wife and it annoys me".

"Did she tell you about Daniel?" Chummy asked, entirely surprised he was being quite this open. Still, he had rather a lot to protect.

"In a round about way" Philip replied, it not registering that he was clearly not the only one to know.

Chummy bit the bullet. "Did you know he had been arrested?"

"Yes" her companion responded with a heavy sigh. "Word gets around awfully quickly in our circle if it wants to. You know that yourself. I know he was arrested, know what for and I also know he used my name. I firmly believe it was part of a plan". He wondered if Chummy knew about George Bolton particularly as the husband was a police officer if he remembered rightly. Who knows what had been said behind closed doors?

"A plan?" Chummy asked.

Philip nodded. "Philip Harbottle would be a wanted man when he didn't appear before the Magistrates. The police would be looking everywhere for him….and they would find me but not me and he and Isobel would slide off into the sunset with my money". Most of it ill-gotten money but all the same. It was all clean money, just obtained from rather dirty business. "It all seems very obvious to me".

Behind her Chummy heard a car, the headlights illuminating her office realizing her husband had been right all along. "That will be Peter". Accompanied by Isobel no doubt and she was sure that the monumental confrontation that she was expecting was moments away.

"One didn't come here to fight or for this sad situation to descend into something from an appalling radio drama" Philip said as she stood up. "I simply wish to talk to my wife properly".

Chummy nodded, that errant scrap of sympathy rearing its head again. "Take Freddie for a moment".

With the boy placed in his arms and looking up at this new person curiously, Philip remained in his seat. There were three voices, clearly, in the hallway and one was definitely his wife even though they were talking in whispers. His feet took him to the door immediately, a hand not wanting to twist the brass doorknob, but it did it all the same. It was Peter who was the first to notice him; if only for Freddie screeching 'Daddy!' and wriggling to get out of the strangers arms. His wife only having a moment to relay a half story, paused, reading the look on her husband's face, although really not knowing what to do about it.

"Hello son" Peter said as the boy was handed over, pressing a kiss to his temple. "Been a good boy today?"

"He has..." Chummy replied automatically, before realizing there were more pressing things to hand. She could see Isobel staring at the floor and feeling Philip's presence behind her.

"Chummy do you think my wife and I could usurp you of your office?" Philip asked.

She shot a look to Isobel . "Belle?"

The other woman nodded. "Yes. One thinks that would be a good idea. An inevitable idea".

"Well, use the treatment room" Chummy suggested. "There is little chance of you being interrupted by one of the girls". Isobel stepped forward, Chummy gently squeezing her arm as she stopped by her side. "Peter and I will be in the office". With that, and showing them the way, Chummy closed the treatment room door on them. Peter and Freddie were still standing in the hallway and without a word – as there wasn't really much to say - followed mother and wife into her room.

They sat, both with ears wide open to any scrap of noise from the other room. "So what happened?" Chummy asked, Freddie having gone back to chewing her button.

"Not much", Peter responded. "She doesn't know a great deal about it. She made a statement about those letters, managed to incriminate Ferguson without realizing it…"

"Oh?"

"Giving false information to the police" he clarified.

"Oh", Chummy replied flatly.

Philip was a key to so very much more and with the fact that Ferguson was likely to be re-arrested as soon as his colleagues could get his hands on him, everything seemed to be falling into place."But the Inspector wants Harbottle" Peter responded, knowing full well that the opportunity had simply just arrived and presented itself to him.

"Oh…." Her voice was even more subdued as she knew what was coming next.

"Yes, oh…" Peter replied, looking over to the adjoining door. "And he's in the room next door to me. A police officer".

"Then you have to do what you have to do". Chummy knew her husband; knew that when it came to his job, he went by the letter of the law at every turn and there was no point arguing too much with him. She knew what he would be doing before he had even said it. "Do you think though…?" she started but stopped immediately.

"Do I think what?" Peter asked as Freddie reached out to him, deciding he wanted a cuddle off Daddy again. With her son off her knee, she had the chance to move and turned her seat to face him.  
"Do you think you could ask him if he would go to the station? Not under duress?" She was thinking of the girls and Isobel, in that order. "I know you don't think much of him, Peter and neither do I…but it will bad enough for….." Peter caused her words to dry up as he took her hand.

"I will ask him to accompany me to the Station. If he becomes difficult, I'll arrest him them and only then" he replied, wanting to reassure her and receiving a kiss on the cheek in thanks.

He was interrupted in returning the kiss by the sound of a yell and smashing glass.


	13. Chapter 13

One day passed and the Lodge was quiet.

Chummy, however, was desperately distracted and waiting for news as each hour rolled on.

 _"_ _I'll do my best"._

Chummy sighed again, putting down her pen. The smashed picture frame was still in the bin in the other room. The photograph inside it was now propped up on her desk in front of her with its corner torn looking forlorn. It was the first thing that Isobel had picked up to throw at her husband and what they had heard smashing on the floor. Why she had to do that? That photo of Freddie and Sister Evangelina that had been sitting on the desk in the treatment room, smashed to bits and only just missing Philip's eye as he ducked out of the way.

All of a sudden tears filled her eyes. What a mess it all was.

 _"_ _I'll try my best Camilla I promise"._

Peter's words rang around her. Seeing that photograph on the floor last night tipped her to the edge. Seeing Philip crouched down on the floor and a furious Isobel steaming in the corner, red face tight and shocked and, Peter, deciding the only thing he could and should do was get them both into custody. She'd cried a few tears of frustration and upset last night and the more her mind chewed over the events, the tears kept flowing.

They were in Poplar. Probably. With the help of the village constable it had all simmered down really quite quickly but this was all too complicated and hurtful. It was seeing that photograph that did it. The photograph of her precious boy sullied and damaged as it lay on the floor covered in glass.

She needed someone to talk to. How she wished one of the Sisters was here - Sister Evangelina, to be honest. Her advice would be practical, truthful and to the point. Above all, it would be effective. A tear dropped and slid its way down her cheek. She didn't bother swiping it away and it landed blotted by the paper on her desk.

The telephone rang at almost that second and she jumped out of her skin at the sudden noise. Instead of the person she hoped it would be – Peter – she wrote down the details of a new girl that would be joining the lodge in eleven days precisely. Distracted, she put the telephone down and sighed searching her mind to see what she could, or indeed should, do. She had plenty of jobs to do but motivation had found itself lacking.

Looking over to the other side of the room Freddie was fast asleep in his playpen under a pile of toys. "At least you can sleep little one", she whispered to him. "No worries to be had for you are there?"

Three hours later of finding things to do to force herself into mindful occupation, Chummy heard a car pull up outside the Lodge. She turned in her seat and with one finger pulled away the net curtain to see. It was Peter at last and thankfully, with a deep sigh of relief that she regretted, he was alone. It wasn't as though her friendship with Isobel would ever fall apart over a smashed photograph, but she really didn't want to see her at this moment for fear of what either had to say. Things were now being brought to a head.

As soon as he opened up the door to her office on his way in, his face told her all she needed to know and she watched as he trudged upstairs to change.

The story he brought back was long and complicated and Chummy sat listening intently as soon as Freddie had been bathed and put to bed. She had been hankering to ask him so many questions for hours but she could tell he was still chewing it over in his own mind before he could address it any more. On the drive back to the Lodge, he had been thinking over what he ought to tell her about her friend and decided that it was only what she _needed_ to know.

"He wanted to make a deal with the Inspector", Peter had begun, absently sipping from his usual evening whiskey. He needed it after today. "We could lay charges against Isobel for assaulting him, Ferguson for giving false information and the drugs, and well, he said that he would give up George Bolton in exchange for no charges against those two".

"No charges?!" Chummy was astonished; thinking she had perhaps misheard. Peter shook his head. "But he was all for Daniel having it with both barrels. Using his name, interfering with his wife…"

"I know" Peter responded with a defeated shrug of the shoulders. "But, the Inspector agreed to it. There were – are - bigger fish to fry than an assault and a drugs charge".

"You surprise me" Chummy replied sarcastically.

"They rub each other up the wrong way". Peter doubted that the throwing of Freddie's photograph was the first time Isobel had done something like that. Of all the things he had learned this past few weeks, it sounded as though she and her husband were as bad as each other.

"I never expected you to be sympathetic to him", Chummy responded.

"I'm not" Peter replied quickly. "But I spent most of today stuck in an interview room with him and some of things he said sounded as though he genuinely wanted to help us and even to see if the marriage can work. Whether she wants to stay is another thing". Philip, it seemed, by his own admission needed to realise that. "I think they wind each other up. It's toxic; but it's not our job to sort out their personal behaviour. I'm not interested in their marriage." If between him and the Inspector they could get Bolton, well that just might be the conviction of his life. The Inspector had already mentioned a commendation.

He didn't tell her, however, what Philip had actually said.

 _'_ _You see Sergeant, if neither of them are charged, when I am perfectly within my rights to press ahead, if I don't she may realise I have a bargaining chip, as it were, regarding her dalliance with Ferguson. She may take a more sensible view point and stop all of this silly behaviour and behave like a wife should'._ The man had paused for a second. _'And despite what numerous may think, I do have an affection for her and do not wish to see her or her mother out on the streets. Which, quite frankly, would occur if she doesn't see what is best for her'._

He had also mentioned new starts. ' _Even, Sergeant, if it is a facade. It is better than living my life in the circles I now do'._

"Where are they?" Chummy asked, wondering if either or both were stewing in cell somewhere.

"The Inspector bailed her and took sureties from him. They went to stay in the Waldorf apparently. They were out of the station before I could even suggest she came back here to collect her suitcase". The moment his back was turned at the custody desk once he had signed them out, they were gone.

Chummy closed her eyes and shook her head. "She went off with him?"

"Yes" Peter replied. He didn't understand it himself. "He wants out of this arrangement he has with Bolton. It's money and easy money at that, but he wants away in the best way possible to make sure he is protected". He'd realised just how dangerous a situation he had become involved in.

"Can you protect him?" she asked. She was genuinely frightened for her friend. The obvious violence that had now presented itself; the fact that it was obvious too that Peter was keeping things from her and now that for some inexplicable reason, Isobel had chosen to take off with him.

"To an extent we can. He doesn't know how far Bolton's web is woven but he knows enough to…well, knows where he is…" Peter offered. "The Inspector is speaking to Scotland Yard tonight. We need some more manpower and he's out of our patch". Southampton to be precise but that was confidential.

"So we wait?" she asked.

"We wait, but…." Peter paused. She had to be told. "If she turns up here, or he does or Daniel or anyone even mentioning this whole mess, they are _not_ to take one step over this threshold". Some had already found out where Isobel and Philip lived to send those letters, the last thing he wanted was such a thing turning up at the Lodge.

"Peter…" she pleaded. How could she turn a friend away? One friend that had been her only true companion for most of her life? Sensible Chummy knew he was right; trouble was the emotional side of her was too loud in her ear.

He budged closer to her and slid a palm over her cheek. "Listen to me" he enunciated, not letting her break his gaze. "They do not come near this place. I know she's your friend, but you are my wife and Freddie is our son. They do not come here. I know I can't tell you much, but _please_ understand why Camilla…"

She did understand. He was only protecting her. He'd learned all sorts this afternoon that was not for sharing and was beyond caring about anything but his family. He also knew his wife and that it was a boundary she would push. He reached across to kiss her, a deep kiss, almost a sign of possession. "Pack her suitcase and I'll take it to the Station tomorrow and it can be sent on".

Chummy pressed her lips together. "Peter…" She knew she was pleading with him, feeling his thumb quietly brushing her cheek. He just shook his head. "I'll do it tonight" she responded when she realised he was not budging.

 _"_ No _, now"._

With a solemn nod, Chummy knew she had no choice and with another of those kisses she was away downstairs with a heavy heart and dreading the days to come.

It felt like betrayal.


End file.
